


i'm not saying you're a liar (but you are)

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Breathplay, Dom/sub Undertones, Dream Sex, M/M, Pining, Rough Sex, Subspace, Unsafe Sex, Van Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:16:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete falls in love with Patrick's mom, Patrick's mom's nachos, and Patrick, in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm not saying you're a liar (but you are)

**Author's Note:**

> generally follows actual chronological events, but sped up and obvsly fictionalized. technically underaged but all participants are above the age of consent where i live and fully consenting so i didn't tag it.

Pete Wentz falls in love with Patrick during Fall Out Boy’s third official band practice, before they’re even really Fall Out Boy.

He doesn’t actually notice at the time, which isn’t entirely out of character. Pete is absolutely willing to admit that he’s a dense motherfucker. In this case he doesn’t notice because of Patrick’s mom. 

Patrick’s mom, it turns out, makes the best damn vegetarian nachos Pete has ever shoved into his face. Seriously so good Pete had tried to propose when he’d taken the first bite. Patrick’s mom had laughed; Pete had been pretty damn serious. 

Joe has long ago declared them both idiots and wandered off to mess around with Patrick’s drum kit. Patrick had started twitching and continues to get even twitchier as Joe proves he’s no drummer, but he’s staring Pete down over the plate and Pete is learning that Patrick is a determined motherfucker. He doesn’t know the kid terribly well yet but he’s starting to think he wants to. 

The thing is Pete wants the last, loaded chip. Patrick wants it too and apparently doesn’t understand the concept that Pete is a _guest_ and ought to be treated with _respect_. Respect, and the last nacho. 

When Pete tries to explain this to him Patrick just stares at him with a creepy, dead-inside zombie expression until Pete decides retreat - for now - is a tactically advantageous maneuver. 

“Let’s split it,” he offers. Patrick shrugs. 

“Might as well,” he says glumly. Pete ignores him. Patrick is just a wet blanket. 

“You should get a fork. To split it with!” Pete says, putting on his most innocent face when Patrick doesn’t look convinced. “Hands are _gross_ , Patrick!” he continues, and so Patrick leaves to go get one.

Leaving Pete alone with the last nacho would be perfectly reasonable if Patrick were dealing with a normal, decent person but Pete is, in fact, the exactly opposite of a normal, decent person. Patrick has committed a grave tactical error. 

He waits until Patrick is back in the room, staring in horrified betrayal at the nacho in Pete’s hand. 

“I win, motherfucker!” Pete tells him triumphantly and stuffs the entire handful of nacho in his mouth. He grins at Patrick, strings of cheese and globs of salsa falling out, and Patrick makes a face like he’s not sure if he’s more grossed out or pissed off. He’s still holding the fork, kind of dangling sadly from his hand, and Pete snorts so hard he almost gets salsa up his nose. 

“What the fuck, even?” Patrick asks. He sounds lost. “Dude, you’re gross as fuck.” 

Apparently he’s too perplexed to even be mad yet which is fucking awesome. Pete’s finding out Patrick has a wicked temper and a sweet-if-uncoordinated right hook. Pete keeps grinning and chews desperately. He’d like to have the time to properly digest his food before Patrick gets over being confused and punches him in the stomach. 

Patrick punches him a few seconds later and that’s probably when Pete falls in love. It might color their relationship just a little.

-o-

It takes Pete a few days after this to notice he’s a little bit in love with Patrick.

It’s in the middle of one of their more… _fractious_ band practices, which means Patrick’s having his third panic attack of the day over stage fright and still stubbornly trying to insist he’d be a better drummer than singer. Which, no, not happening, Pete knows a good thing when he hears it even if Patrick has the self-esteem of a rock. 

He realizes as Patrick squints down at a page full of ballpoint doodles and disjointed not-really poetry. He’s frankensteining together a song, _somehow_ , because Patrick is magic and has some preternatural power to make Pete’s horrible teenage angst into something that sounds like it means something. 

The knowledge hits and washes through him a little like jumping in a lake, a cold shock all at once. He waits a few seconds, barely breathing, before spitting out something vaguely resembling the word ‘bathroom’ and dashing for the hallway. 

The door to the bathroom bangs as he blows through it, locking it desperately behind him. He sits down on the toilet and loses his shit for a few minutes. 

He gets himself under control pretty rapidly. If there’s one thing Pete Wentz is good at it’s rolling with the punches, and on the scale of Bad Things to Happen to Pete Wentz this barely rates. 

The love part isn’t a problem! He's been in love before, he totally knows how to handle it. He's got, like, _experience_. And it’s not like he didn’t see it coming from like five minutes after he got over the amount of ugly argyle the kid was wearing. Patrick is fucking cute, Pete dares anyone to meet him and not fall in love. 

Besides, it's totally a pure love. Agape or whatever the fuck the creepy-ass Greeks liked to talk about while they were busy jacking off over philosophy. Pete just wants to cherish him all the time and pinch his cheeks and like, adopt him, in the least creepy way possible. Patrick needs a little cherishing, he’s got some killer self-esteem issues that aren’t at all conducive to being lead singer. 

So Pete’s in love. It’s okay, it’s not like there’s anything sexual. That'd be like trying to fuck a family pet or something. 

Not that Pete would be opposed to kissing Patrick a little bit, _hypothetically_ , he's definitely aware of that mouth. Just, y'know, non-sexually. 

Platonically. 

Whatever. 

There's the band to think about, anyway. Patrick is the best thing to happen to music - this is half the reason Pete is in love with him - and Pete isn't self-destructive enough to mess that up for himself. He's unstable and morbid but he isn't an _idiot_. 

He's in love with his lead singer but that's no big deal. He gets an amazing band and the best friend ever instead of… whatever he and Patrick would be, since it’s platonic. He's fucking spoiled.

-o-

It takes a while to get Patrick on board with the ‘best friends forever’ plan but Pete is persistent. It’s one of his best traits according to his mom. It works out pretty much solely because Pete’s _second_ best trait is being charming as hell despite himself.

“I don’t remember telling you where I go to school,” Patrick observes. 

He’s standing with his hands on his hips, hat tipped back challengingly on his head, glaring at Pete leaning nonchalantly against the passenger door of his car. The glare is endlessly endearing and Pete’s heart maybe flutters a little bit because Pete is a _massive fucking sap_ , Christ. He tells himself to get it together and grins his biggest, shiniest grin. The one that says ‘I know you don’t _want_ to, but you like me anyway, don’t you’. 

“There’s only so many schools in Glenview, you know,” he offers reasonably. Patrick relaxes until Pete continues offhandedly, “Plus your mom told me.” 

“You talked to my mom?” Patrick demands, blinking like that’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. Pete pushes off from where he’s leaning and rolls his eyes at Patrick. For being Pete’s one true platonic soulmate he can be a little stupid. 

“Well, duh. I’m gonna court her. Hey, _ouch!_ Careful with your bassist!” 

Patrick either isn’t listening or doesn’t quite understand the meaning of the word careful, pulling back his fist to punch Pete in the arm again. Pete dances back and pouts his poutiest pout. 

“Okay, fine, I didn’t talk to your mom! I asked Trohman, asshole,” he says. “Jesus, you’re no fun at all.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and twists his mouth into one of the most unimpressed looks Pete’s seen pointed in his direction. “It’s illegal to stalk people, Wentz, not _fun_. You’re a creepy motherfucker.”

“Words hurt, you know,” Pete tells him. “I’m not even technically stalking, anyway.” 

Patrick rocks back on his heels. “Should I be surprised you apparently know what technically constitutes stalking?” he asks. 

“Knowledge is power, Rickster,” Pete says cheerfully and ignores the scowl the nickname triggers. 

Patrick’s tiny, even tinier than Pete, and that’s saying something. He’s got the world’s worst taste in both haircuts and clothes - and this is coming from Pete - and he refuses to take off his hat ever. He’s chubby and angry and cute, and has so far proven entirely unimpressed with any of Pete’s bullshit. Pete’s stomach flutters and it feels like a middle school crush, all innocent butterflies and pointless blushing. 

“Why are you even here?” Patrick asks. 

Pete cranks the wattage of his grin as high as it will go and Patrick, proving that he has decent survival instincts, regards the expression dubiously. 

“Let’s go on a date,” Pete says, and Patrick punches him again.

-o-

Patrick agrees to go with him to the mall on something he refuses to call a ‘bro-date’ no matter how many times Pete tries to make him. He turns the volume on the stereo up - despite the CD in the slot being a shitty early nineties Voorhees bootleg that even Pete admits is awful - every time Pete mentions it. It ends up being too loud by the end of the ride for Pete to hear himself talk, which is impressive.

Pete has the _best_ taste in tiny singers, seriously. 

Patrick starts to look slightly less martyred when Pete drags him straight to the tiny little used record store. Patrick spends approximately an hour thumbing through the discount boxes, touching all the Prince with slightly disturbing reverence and picking good-natured fights with Pete over Queens of the Stone Age. By the end of it he’s grinning at Pete unguardedly and only punching him once in a while, when Pete goes a little too far about Patrick’s mancrush on Prince. 

Pete glows every time Patrick smiles at him and tells the cashier that he and Patrick are soulmates when she raises her eyebrows. Patrick goes _brilliantly_ red and punches him twice for that but it’s worth it. 

Patrick’s in such a good mood he doesn’t even bitch too loudly when Pete drags him into the Rite-Aide and spends more than five minutes loudly debating eyeliner colors with himself. 

Pete ends the bro-date by dragging Patrick to the food court’s smoothie stand and ordering the biggest, pinkest smoothie they have. Patrick tugs his hat over his eyes and generally tries to give off the impression that he doesn’t know Pete, especially when Pete specifies that there should be _two_ straws and grins lecherously at him. 

Pete breezes right by that because, whatever, pink smoothies for two are totally punk rock and also totally mandatory bro-date fare. Patrick concedes and lets himself have some smoothie only once Pete’s pulled him off into the corner of the food court hidden by the most fake plastic ferns. 

“Good end to our bro-date?” Pete asks cheerfully. Patrick groans and scrubs a hand through his hair, knocking his hat askew. 

“If I say yes will you stop calling it that?” he asks at last. Pete grins triumphantly and points at Patrick. 

“So you admit it _is_ one?” he demands. Patrick groans, again, and lays his forehead on the sticky plastic of the tiny table. Pete sips strawberry smoothie and watches him interestedly until he finally stirs. 

“Yes,” he says. His voice is muffled by the way his face is still pressed into the tabletop. “Now will you please stop calling it that?” 

“Anything for you, Ricky,” Pete says cheerfully, and sucks at a stubborn chunk of berry.

-o-

Somehow the dates become kind of a _thing_ , though Pete stops calling them that even to himself somewhere along the line. It’s just something they do, the Pete-and-Patrick hangouts. To the mall, or the movies, or just chilling in one of their rooms and listening to music. Patrick tries to convert him to Prince, Pete sings along to old-school hardcore punk until Patrick tries to smother him, the ungrateful bastard.

Pete’s love doesn’t fade, because his love is true and deep and shit, but it stops mattering pretty much entirely. Not even Patrick really notices his constant declarations anymore, probably partially because Pete declares his love to everything from the Sunday cartoons to the Starbucks cashier. Pete was so right, being in love with Patrick is no big deal. 

Patrick keeps rolling his eyes at Pete’s various antics, bails him out of some stupid situations, keeps him from doing some of the more dubiously legal things. On one memorable occasion he runs from the cops with Pete in-tow and… 

They’re best friends forever. Just like that.

-o-

The crowd is impossibly loud through the venue’s walls and Patrick is standing too close.

Pete isn’t sure why he’s noticing. He doesn’t really understand the concept of personal space, as a rule. He’s a touchy guy, okay, it’s just his personality. 

He’s reconsidering his stance, though. Patrick is so close Pete can feel his body heat, staring at him in a way Pete isn’t used to getting from him. From fangirls, sure, bless their hearts, and fanboys even sometimes, but not from Patrick. Patrick is the last person on earth Pete expects to look at him like this - like he’s naked and Patrick is starving for every inch of Pete’s skin. 

“Patrick?” he asks, shakier than he likes. Patrick cocks his head in answer, like he’s listening, but his eyes aren’t meeting Pete’s. He’s looking Pete over slow and steady, a once-over Pete’s never seen Patrick do before. It’s confident, but more. Sure, like he’s entitled to Pete’s body and he’s just taking his due. 

The first brush of fingertips on Pete's chest is chaste, just the softest pressure and warmth, barely rucking up the cloth of his shirt. He gasps in a breath anyway, sharp and needy, because he’d seen Patrick raise his hand but he hadn’t _expected this_. His noise makes Patrick smile in that lazy-eyed, satisfied way that itches unpleasantly under Pete's skin when most people do it. 

Patrick, he makes it look like porn. Like _sex_. 

“What do you want, Pete?” he asks. Pete licks his lips and feels the way Patrick tracks his mouth light him up. 

“Patrick,” he whispers. Patrick smiles and-

-o-

Pete wakes up kind of hard, which is pretty normal, and with a smile in his head that seems distantly familiar. Not much from the dream has stuck around in his head but the smile and the itchy arousal under his skin. He doesn't really think about it, jacks off lazily thinking about nothing in particular and wipes his hand on his sheets when he’s done. Sneakily, because no one but himself need know the level to which he is a disgusting motherfucker.

He washes his own laundry now, anyway, his mom doesn’t even have to deal with it. 

He lazes the day away, skipping classes because he just feels too good to bother. His mom eyes him a little but most indulges him and ignores the desultory bass playing. It’s rare that Pete gets days like this, happy, without any of the usual itching under his skin. 

Band practice that night is great, he’s fucking _on_ and Patrick doesn’t try to insist he’s not a singer even once. Joe is a whirlwind of energy and Pete’s finally convinced Andy to come out for a practice. It’s filling Pete up inside all fizzing and burningly sweet, the way it usually only does for a screaming crowd, threatening to spill over. 

It gets so big and good that Pete drops his bass and throws himself at Joe as soon as the song is over, knocking him into a wall. Joe’s laughing so hard Pete feels his whole body shake, guitar held out of range with one hand, the other pounding him on the back. 

Patrick reels him back by the back of his shirt and hands him his abandoned bass with an unconvincing scowl. He can feel it too, feel how good the day is, and it’s getting through his Patrick-the-Grouch exterior. 

“Play, asshole,” he says, but smiles back when Pete beams at him. 

Later, when Joe’s declared a snack break, he crawls into Patrick's lap and sprawls all over him, patting his face obnoxiously and tugging on the hair sticking out from under his hat. Patrick puts up with him until Pete climbs to his knees and lays a big, wet kiss on his cheek, when he dumps Pete off the couch onto his ass. 

It hurts a little bit but Pete forgives him because he can't not-forgive Patrick. Patrick laughs in his face when Pete tries to tell him that and refuses to let Pete back on the couch. Pete forgives him for that too.

-o-

Pete has never met anyone less impressed with his shit than Patrick.

It’s one of his favorite things about Patrick, actually. It’s nice to know one person that’ll never let Pete get away with something just because it’s Pete. He still lets Pete get away with some things, because Pete is a convincing motherfucker if he does say so himself - lead singer, anyone? Patrick would have done that for probably _no one else_ \- but there are still lines he’s not allowed to cross. 

He crosses them anyway, he’s _Pete Wentz_ , but Patrick punches him a lot for it and he thinks that evens out. 

It’s inconvenient when he’s trying to convince Patrick to go along with one of his actually good ideas though, like when he starts rolling his eyes before Pete even gets his mouth all the way open. 

“No, Pete,” he says with finality. Pete snorts because, nice try Patrick, that’s never _once_ stopped him. 

“But Patrick!” he says, swaying back on his heels, clasping his hands together beseechingly and fluttering his eyelashes. Patrick squints at him. 

“Stop that, you look like you’re about to have a stroke,” he says unkindly. Pete bounces back onto the balls of his feet and frowns his saddest frown. 

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say, Tricky!” he says. Patrick continues to eye him with the same level of distrust he’d give a toddler with a loaded gun. 

They’re at Joe’s house, waiting for him to finish up a phone call to his mom or his grandmother or something. Patrick's colonized the sofa with a pile of sheet music and Pete's poking around the room, making a nuisance of himself. 

“Fine, Pete, what do you have to say,” Patrick sighs, setting aside his pile of scribbled-out melodies. 

“We need Hurley,” Pete says, then points at Patrick warningly when he opens his mouth to argue. “We do, motherfucker, and you know it. We’re at our best with him.” 

“We are,” Patrick agrees grudgingly and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and giving Pete serious attention for the first time all day. “So what are you thinking?” 

He's _so_ serious Pete can't actually help himself. 

“So I know this guy,” he begins, “and he has this basement, right…”

Patrick meets his eyes with horrified fascination for a few seconds before Pete cracks up and Patrick's shoving him away, huffing with annoyance. 

“Can you be serious for one fucking second?” he asks. Pete fakes a pout from the floor. 

“Constitutionally incapable,” he says breezily. “My doctor says it's terminal. Seriously though-,” 

“If you can manage it,” Patrick says dryly. Pete glares at him but continues. 

“We need to convince Hurley that we're worth taking a chance on. I may have an idea but it's gonna take some work. And your mom is gonna _hate_ it.”

“Go on,” Patrick says dubiously. Pete leans forward and fixes his most conviction-filled stare on him. 

“Patrick, how do you feel about tours?” he asks.

-o-

Getting the tour booked is, relatively, the easy part. The first hurdle comes in the form of convincing Andy to come.

Andy answers his phone with a muffled “Yo,” that means he probably didn’t bother to check caller ID. Pete usually rates a dread-filled “What do you want?” most of the time. Maybe Andy got laid? Pete decides to hope for that. A mellow Hurley is a Hurley that’s easier to convince into touring. 

“Andy!” he says brightly, and Andy sighs in his ear. 

“Hi, Wentz,” he replies. He sounds resigned, and a little fond. Hurley loves him, really. 

“I’m about to ask you a huge favor. A very big favor. The biggest favor. You will be saving my life forever, Andy. I’ll owe you _so big_.” 

Pete is a big believer in buttering people up. 

“You already owe me everything you own, motherfucker. I’m gonna collect your firstborn, just watch.” Hurley replies, but he sounds more amused than anything and Pete bounces in place a little. A very good sign. 

“Yes but now you can have Trohman’s firstborn too,” he throws in and flutters his eyelashes beseechingly even though Andy can’t see him. 

“You have my attention,” Andy says with an outright laugh. “What do you need? I’m not helping you move, if you finally got kicked out.” 

“This is bigger than that,” Pete says. 

“Fucks’ sake, Pete,” Andy says, sounding a little put-upon now, and Pete bursts out with it. 

“I need you to drum for my band on tour next month,” he says breathlessly and bites his lip, waiting. 

“I don’t know man, don’t you have a drummer?” Andy hedges. Pete wiggles impatiently and tries not to let that leak into his voice. 

“He got sick,” Pete lies through his teeth. 

“You’re a liar, Wentz,” Andy says, but he sounds more entertained by it than anything. “You don’t even have one, you’re just trying to poach me.”

“Hurley, Hurley, Andy, come on. You’re the best there is and I want you. You’re a drumming god, Hurley,” Pete whines. “Help us, Andy-wan, you're our only hope.” 

Andy huffs through the phone but he's totally considering it. Pete can tell. 

“I don’t know, man, you know I’m in a couple of bands. I can’t just leave,” he says. Pete just snorts. 

“Come on, Hurley, we’re going to be big. I feel it in my _bones_ , Hurley,” he wheedles. “I can compliment you some more, whatever you want. You want sexual favors? I can get Joe for you!”

Andy laughs outright and Pete knows he’s got him. 

“I’m good, no need to call Joe. How long is this tour for, anyway?” Andy asks. 

“Just two weeks,” Pete says, grinning madly and trying to sound casual. “Not long at all. Joe says he’s got transportation, we’ve got everything but a drummer.” 

Andy waits for a solid minute of tense, static-filled silence. Pete bites his lip and fights off the desire to giggle nervously. 

“Maybe,” Andy says at last and Pete pulls the phone away from his face to hiss and pump his fist. When he puts it back Andy is still talking. “-and I swear to god, Wentz, no pranking.” 

“Right, right,” Pete lies, crossing his fingers. “You’re the best, Andy!” 

“Fuckin’ right,” Andy says and hangs up.

-o-

The second and last hurdle to get the tour going is getting Patrick to come.

“No,” Patrick’s mom says. “I understand why you want to go, honey, but no.” 

This is easier said than done, which Pete anticipated. Patrick’s mom, predictably, isn’t totally chill with the idea of her underage son running around miles from home in a tiny van with a bunch of unwashed dudes, playing extremely loud music to a bunch of other teenagers. Pete totally gets that, from an objective standpoint. Pete is not at all an objective dude, though, and he wants his tiny platonic soulmate on tour with him.

So Patrick’s mom has to be convinced. 

There’s one kink in this plan, and that’s the fact that Patrick’s mom doesn’t believe Pete’s a responsible adult. 

This isn’t actually fair! Pete hasn’t once done anything at Patrick’s house, and the time with the cops is not his fault. Patrick shouldn’t have told her about it, and he maintains he wasn’t actually involved except peripherally. Despite this it’s not actually surprising that Patrick's mom doesn't like him, Pete supposes. Pete doesn’t exactly craft his image to be parent-friendly. 

On the other hand, for some mystifying reason she adores Joe. Which is why, when Pete manages to snag them a potential tour, he’s delegated to do all the talking. 

“We totally understand your concerns, ma’am,” he says. He sounds sincere. He might even be; Joe is thoroughly stoned, though he’s hiding it well. “I’m sure we can work something out. Would you mind if I had a drink?” 

Patrick’s mom follows Joe into the kitchen, looking a little bemused. Pete grins and nudges Patrick. 

“Joe’s got this,” he says. 

“Joe’s toked out of his mind,” Patrick mutters but he’s starting to smile a little, grudgingly.

They don’t have to wait more than five minutes before Patrick’s mom marches out with an expression of martyred resignation that means Joe won. Joe’s sauntering out behind her, winking at the two of them, and Pete narrowly avoids pumping his fist in victory. He’s pretty sure that’d give Patrick’s mom the wrong impression. He links his fingers together behind his back just in case. 

“What did you _say_?” Patrick hisses at Joe under his breath. Joe just shrugs and grins, sipping a glass of water. 

“Before I say Patrick can go, I have some ground rules,” Patrick’s mom says severely. Pete catches Patrick rolling his eyes out of the corner of his eye and winces. 

“First off, no drinking and no drugs. You’re not old enough to know what you’re doing,” she continues. Pete pastes on a responsible smile and nods vigorously. The way Patrick’s getting a little red in the face is worrying. 

“And I realize that I can’t stop you from having sex-,” Patrick makes a high-pitched noise of combined anger and embarrassment that Pete can kind of sympathize with, “-but _please_ be safe, Rick.” 

Patrick opens his mouth, eyebrows pulled together testily, and Pete kicks out desperately. He gets Patrick in the ankle pretty hard. Patrick goes pale and hisses in a breath but shuts his mouth, thank god. Coughing to distract Patrick’s mom, Pete smiles winningly. 

“We’ll take the best care of your son, ma’am,” he says, hoping he’s not laying it on too thick. Patrick’s mom eyes him pretty hard but eventually sighs and relaxes a little. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she mutters, which, _rude_ , but Pete’s too busy trying to stop himself from tackling Patrick to the ground in celebration to truly sulk about it.

-o-

_I have a van_ , Joe had said.

“Are you sure this thing runs?” Andy asks. Pete silently agrees, eyeing the thing dubiously. 

It’s a van, definitely, but it looks a strong wind away from falling apart right in Joe’s driveway. Rusted, duct tape holding one of the headlights on, and Pete’s pretty sure if he were to open the door a cloud of pot smoke several years thick would billow out. It looks like a death trap, basically, and Pete isn’t terribly enthused about the thought of dying before they can even get to their first show. 

“More or less,” Joe grins, sounding completely unbothered. “You know, as long as the heat’s running. It’s chill, though, I know all the tricks.” 

“We’re fucked,” Patrick whispers to Pete. Pete’s inclined to agree.

-o-

The first show of the tour is _terrible_.

It’s not quite the kind of legendary bad that Pete's had in his days with Arma, but it’s pretty shitty. The crowd is bad, the venue is bad, the sound equipment is _awful_. Joe breaks a string and Pete gets an elbow to the eye just before the set that leaves him squinting. Andy’s not a hundred percent up to speed with all their songs, and Patrick spends the entire thing looking like he wants to puke. 

It's the kind of bad that means Pete’s expecting Patrick to flat-out quit the band when he grabs Pete when they finally get through the set. 

Instead he spins them in a circle and his face is shining with so much happiness Pete’s stomach flips over. 

“That sucked!” he yells and he’s grinning maniacally. 

Pete reaches up and presses his thumbs into Patrick’s cheeks, stretching his grin even wider to match the one on Pete’s face. He feels suddenly hysterical, like he’s about to overflow, pure happiness spilling out of his mouth and all over everywhere. He wants to make Patrick this happy _forever_. 

They’re a _band_ , and this show might have sucked but the next one won’t. Pete can feel it. 

“It did!” he shouts back in belated reply and takes the opportunity to whack Patrick’s hat off and ruffle his hair before Patrick can properly defend himself. 

Later, bedding down in the back of the band van, Patrick rolls out his bag next to Pete’s and flops down to face him. He looks a little more serious, sobered up from the performance high. Pete grins at him, still riding it a little too much to sleep. 

“Thank you,” Patrick says simply, and Pete can’t breathe. 

“I didn’t do anything,” he manages, because he _didn’t_. He’s a mediocre bassist stumbling on gold before anyone else could. And he really didn’t even do that. He needs to thank Trohman someday. A fruit basket maybe? Pete’ll work on it. 

“Yeah, you did,” Patrick says and sounds so sure that Pete can’t say anything. He can breathe again, though, and he loves Patrick so much he’s kind of okay with not saying anything. Midnight declarations of adoration in the dark back of a van tend to freak people out, in his experience. Too serious or something. 

Patrick’s rolled over and is asleep by the time Pete’s all the way back under control. Pete falls asleep a little more easily than usual.

-o-

It’s raining the way it only can in the summer, hard and fast and relentless. The drops drum down on the van windows, dark and peaceful, and Patrick’s got his feet tucked up on the dashboard. Andy and Joe are out somewhere in the night looking for food. Pete’s curled up in the passenger seat, head on Patrick’s arm, staring blankly out the window.

“What were you even doing, back then?” Patrick asks idly. 

Pete grunts questioningly when Patrick doesn’t continue. 

“Back, you know, when we first met. Why were you even interested in starting a band with me?” He's tapping frenetically on his knees. It's the kind of useless, restless movement Pete usually sees from himself, but he’s worn out for the moment. “You were in college, dude, you had tons of bands.” 

Pete snorts and levers himself backwards, pressing his head into Patrick’s arm and arching his back. Patrick doesn't press, just waits until he settles back down, staring out the window again. 

“I had bands,” he decides to start with and Patrick opens his mouth, probably to ask why that’s remotely a fucking answer. Pete waves a hand vaguely above his head in Patrick face, cutting him off. “But you're special. You're my 'Trick.” 

He looks back and grins at the pink blush Patrick’s trying to pretend isn’t spreading across his cheeks. 

“What does that even mean, _your ‘Trick_?” Patrick asks, tone reaching for huffy and hitting fond instead. 

“My soulmate,” Pete says, and shrugs. 

“You’re a massive sap, Wentz,” Patrick says but he’s settling his hat low with a pleased grin and Pete feels like he’s done his job well. He smiles faintly, still worn-out, and settles down to watch the rain until Andy and Joe come back.

-o-

It is so hot Pete wants to die.

Joe hadn’t been lying when he said they had to turn the heat on to get the van to go, and it’s a hundred degrees outside on top of that, and Pete wants to be dead. He’s pretty sure the fires of hell are cooler than this, and at least the conversation would be better. Andy’s retreated to some sort of yogi, zen happy place with his eyes closed and something extremely loud in his headphones. Joe’s driving and slowly approaching nuclear levels of rage, but he hasn’t started shaking yet so Pete doesn’t feel the need to step in. Patrick is…

Patrick is practically drenched in sweat but he still refuses to take off his hoodie. Pete’s pretty sure he actually _is_ about to die of heat stroke. Pete’s close to it and all he’s wearing is a pair of basketball shorts he’d found at the bottom of his bag. 

“‘Trick, you’re killing me,” Pete groans the fourth or fifth time Patrick knocks his hat off while wiping sweat off his face. “Just take off a layer or two before you actually die.” 

“No,” Patrick growls, and he sounds so genuinely pissed off that Pete oozes his way over across the sweaty, sticky vinyl seat to press his face into Patrick’s damp shoulder. It smells like unwashed boy and also like stage-sweat, and Pete grins into the nasty material. 

“C’mon, ‘Trick, we don’t want you to die,” he wheedles, twisting his head to grin up at Patrick. He’s red, with heat and with embarrassment, and Pete gets that. Self-esteem issues don’t go away overnight. But Patrick is actually risking his health here. 

“No one wants to see this,” Patrick growls, or tries to. Pete sees right through him. He’s intensely uncomfortable. 

“Sure I do,” Pete says breathlessly and flutters his eyelashes in his best pornstar impression. Patrick won’t meet his eyes but he’s laughing, unbending a little, enough that Pete breaks character and starts tugging at his hoodie. Patrick laughs, real and loud and genuine, and shoves Pete away. Pete rears back and bats at Patrick’s arm as he peels off his hoodie. 

Andy apparently choses then to wake up, reaching out and shoving Pete into Patrick. 

Patrick shrieks and pushes at Pete, Pete screams and tries to juke out of the way, Andy laughs like an asshole, and Joe starts yelling and swerves once, wildly. 

Patrick’s hand somehow ends up on Pete’s ass. 

Patrick doesn’t seem to notice, shoving Pete off and throwing a drumstick at Andy. Joe reaches back and flails wildly, smacking Pete in the ear. Andy’s still laughing like an asshole, and everything is generally chaotic and awful. It’s still unbearably hot. 

Pete feels out of step and off-balance for hours.

-o-

Pete is lying on his bed, shirtless, and Patrick is running his hand down Pete’s spine in slow, possessive strokes.

Pete makes a pleased noise and arches into it. Patrick’s got clever fingers, pressing gently into the dip of his spine and smoothing down towards his tailbone. 

Patrick's hand slides under the waistband of Pete's jeans, and Pete has enough rational thought left to be smug at the little shocked, greedy noise Patrick makes when he encounters nothing but skin. But then Patrick's hissing, grabbing a handful of Pete's ass and _squeezing_ , fingertips pressing so hard Pete thinks he'll have bruises later in the shapes of Patrick's fingerprints. It forces a sharp, low moan from him, punched-out and desperate. 

“You're kind of a slut, Pete,” Patrick says. His voice is almost normal, almost conversational Patrick. It's only a hint of breathlessness, the suggestion of darkness that gives him away. 

Pete moans in response. 

Patrick's hand flexes, kneading Pete's ass, _Christ_ , pulling him forward with the force of it. His cock is trapped and throbbing and he wants to touch himself so badly. 

“Patrick, Patrick,” he pants out, pressing his face into Patrick's thigh. Patrick laughs, low and so fucking hot. 

“Pete, Pete,” he murmurs back, and Pete sobs for breath and-

-o-

He's awake.

The scenery out the window of the van is a dirty diner parking lot and he's alone, alone, alone. 

He shifts and can't help a little noise because he's so hard it's pulsing, his cock aching with it. He can still remember the rough texture of a denim waistband cutting across his hipbones, can feel the heat of Patrick's hand, can feel fingers digging into the meat of his ass and squeezing. It's a sense memory of something that never happened. 

He's got a hand down his boxers and he's coming in seconds in blackout waves of ugly pleasure. 

He muffles his quiet, broken whimper in his free hand. If he were in the habit of being honest with himself he'd admit that the word he doesn't let himself say is something a little like 'trick'. He's not, though. Honesty is for people with fewer issues, he thinks. 

He rolls over to stare at the wall and pretends like there’s nothing wrong when Joe and Andy and Patrick come back with cups of coffee. He doesn't get to sleep, exactly, but he dozes and ignores the ache in his chest.

-o-

He spends the day avoiding Patrick, which is made easier by the fact that Patrick is monopolizing the front seat to have a major conniption over something that Pete doesn’t have the brain-space to understand right now. The sound leveling on their equipment? A messed-up fret on his favorite guitar? Normally Pete would be all over that but right now he’s busy with life-shattering revelations.

He follows time-honored tradition and hides out in the bathroom at the first available opportunity. It’s a truck-stop this time around, but it feels familiar when he bangs his way through the door. Bathrooms are pretty much the same all over. 

He perches on the toilet and draws his knees up to his chest and loses his shit. It’s a comforting kind of déjà vu. 

So he’s in love with Patrick. 

He already knows that one. Everyone in the entire _world_ knows that one, it’s not like he doesn’t announce it at the top of his lungs every single show or anything. Pete isn’t exactly renowned for his subtlety. 

So he’s in love with Patrick, but he _wants_ Patrick too. 

All the reasons from before for why it wouldn’t work are still totally valid. It’s not like Patrick’s stopped being his best friend ever or the band is any less important. Fuck, it’s probably even _more_ important, now that he knows what he’d be fucking up. He’s got a hell of a lot to lose. There’s a lot of reasons why things shouldn’t change, and the fact that apparently Pete’s ‘pure platonic love’ policy isn’t as concrete as he thought it was isn’t going to make them any less relevant. 

Nothing has to change. 

Nothing _can_ change. 

He bounces his way out of the bathroom a half-hour later. He’s got a game plan, and new purpose. Nothing is going to change!

Pete just has to be a little more careful about the touching or something. Get over himself and his stupid crush.

-o-

“Are you alright?” Patrick asks in the seconds before that night’s gig. It’s in a shitty little dive of a venue really, but Pete’s seen worse. He’s _played_ worse, and in much worse condition.

He’s pretty sure that’s not what Patrick’s asking about but there’s no way Pete’s talking about the _thing_ , so Patrick’s shit out of luck. 

“Yeah, man,” he says and gives him the most sincere grin he can manage. Patrick looks slightly mollified so it must work. He doesn’t have any time to try to pry more out of him anyway, they’re pushing each other onstage too soon. 

Pete throws all of his frustration into his playing and Patrick starts watching him nervously between songs as he shouts the fans into a frenzy. Pete ignores him, dancing around him to invade Joe’s personal space and throwing himself into the crowd more than once. The audience is great, and actually interested in hearing them, and Pete feeds on that until he’s spent everything he has in it. 

For the last song he slams into Patrick’s back and licks his cheek and pretends his dick doesn’t twitch at the sweaty, heated taste. The grin Patrick gives him, relieved and proud, is totally worth it. 

He gets a punch in the shoulder that barely stings, after, and Pete’s pretty hopeful things will be alright.

-o-

Pete manages about five days, crammed in close to Patrick all the time and _when_ did Patrick pick up that habit of biting his lip all the time? Pete’s going to develop a nervous disorder. God, now that he knows he wants it he can’t think about anything but biting Patrick’s mouth. It’s a fixation.

Patrick’s started eyeing him distrustfully, the way Pete keeps jumping every time Patrick moves. He’s probably inches from calling an intervention and lecturing to Pete all about the dangers of crack or meth or some shit, which is so incredibly not Pete’s problem it’s hilarious. 

The hotel night comes as a much-needed relief, though Patrick and Pete are rooming together. Patrick would be instantly suspicious if they switched and Pete doesn’t need to give him any more grounds for the ‘say no to drugs, Pete’ discussion. Besides, Andy and Joe refused to room with him on the grounds that ‘only Patrick can stand being around you for that long, you squirrelly fucker’, which, valid. Pete’s not an ideal roommate at the best of times. 

Patrick slings his bag onto the bed and throws himself after it, pressing his face into the fabric and going limp. Pete follows, landing on the opposite bed and bouncing a few times. 

“Are you gonna shower?” Patrick asks, flapping a hand in Pete’s direction without raising his head. It comes out garbled and muffled but Pete’s pretty practiced at translating at this point. 

“Maybe tomorrow,” he offers insincerely. Patrick lifts his head a couple of inches to make a disgusted face in Pete’s direction. 

“You are still the grossest motherfucker I know,” he says. Pete flutters his eyelashes a few times and then pounces. 

Patrick shrieks as Pete lands on him, barely avoiding kneeing him in the dick. There’s a very brief struggle that Pete wins mostly by the element of surprise and a superior willingness to bite. Patrick ends up tucked under his arm, face pressed into Pete’s smelly ribcage, yelling in a muffled way to be released. It tickles, and feels kinda good, but Pete’s ignoring that. 

“Fuck, I give! You win!” he yelps at last and Pete lets go, falling down across Patrick’s chest. He’s panting, and bitching good-naturedly under his breath, and Pete’s heart kicks a little with quiet affection. 

Eventually Patrick starts shoving at his shoulder, trying to get him to get off. 

“I wanna shower, let me go,” he grumbles, elbowing Pete until he rolls over and gives Patrick room to get up. Pete lets him get through rummaging in his things and halfway to the bathroom door before he speaks up. 

“Missing you already, babe,” Pete chirps, feeling his shit-eating grin split his face. Patrick glares back over his shoulder. 

“You’re the worst,” he tells Pete but the fond look in his eye takes any sting out of the words. Patrick shuts the bathroom door behind him and Pete hears the little lock click into place. 

Pete lasts about a _second_ before he’s shoving his boxers down around his knees and getting his hand on his cock. 

He’s hard in less than a minute, leaking precome and so fucking good. He’s been on hair trigger for days, and on a dry streak for nearly as long. The punishing travel schedule means no time for hookups, and Pete’s so far gone he has to press a hand over his mouth as a reminder to keep quiet. 

Patrick starts up the shower and Pete hisses. 

He’d thought maybe, maybe he’d be able to keep his mind off Patrick, like maybe his problem would get better if he just didn’t acknowledge it. But he’s breaking his promise in seconds because there’s a _naked Patrick_ less than twenty feet away. Pete’s not a good enough person to stop himself from thinking about that, about how he’d look naked, hatless, wet. 

He’d probably glare at Pete if he came in. If he hadn’t locked the door, if Pete got up the balls to, if all that, he’d be so pissed at first. But maybe he’d let Pete touch, let him kiss him. 

Patrick has a mouth made for biting and _god_ , Pete wants to. 

If he bit, would Patrick bite back? He can’t help a little noise at the thought, at Patrick angry and turned on and he’d totally push Pete, into a wall maybe, press him against it. Pete wants it, maybe even wants to get pushed to his knees. 

Pete shouldn't be thinking about this, shouldn't want Patrick this much. Patrick’s his _best friend_ and a best friend doesn’t want someone this way, rough and harsh and possessive. It's wrong, at least Pete's pretty sure. Even if the thought is making his dick twitch in his hand, even if it feels like the hottest thing Pete's ever imagined. 

It's probably just stupid, self-destructive Pete wanting to put his dirty fingerprints all over something beautiful but...

Fuck, he can't help the jump in his gut, sick and sexy, at the thought of Patrick fucking his mouth. Wrecking his voice, making it obvious to anyone Pete talks to what happened. Pete choking for breath, Patrick’s cock gagging him before he can, his vision darkening and sparking until Patrick finally, finally lets him breathe. Patrick’s red cheeks and his come on Pete’s lips. 

Pete's head falls back a little and he tightens his grip on his cock, strokes fast and punishing now.

He’s never had a kink for it before, not that he’d known of, but now he can't stop thinking about it. Getting to his knees, Patrick thrusting his cock down Pete’s throat. It gets him somewhere low in his gut, fluttering and dark and selfish, the thought of Patrick owning him down to the breath in his lungs. Watching him begging for air with fluttering eyelids and frantic touches but waiting for _Patrick’s_ word. 

Patrick starts singing in the bathroom, sudden and unexpected - he probably forgot where he was again, absentminded and so perfect - and Pete’s coming, twisted up in the sheets and fighting for vision. It punches a groan out of him, low and choked off as soon as it comes. He claws at the sheets with his free hand, arching back against the sheets until he’s done. He slumps back down, slow and loose and boneless, and pants silently. 

Patrick’s stopped singing but he’s still humming, a wordless tune barely audible through the door, and Pete feels so guilty suddenly that his stomach turns over. Patrick deserves better from a best friend than fucked up kinky fantasies. He deserves the entire fucking world, really, and he ended up with Pete. 

Fuck, he’d come to the thought of Patrick _strangling_ him. He had always known he was fucked up but this is some next level shit. 

He grabs tissues numbly and cleans up the worst of his mess. Patrick’s finishing up, the shower is off and Pete rolls over onto his side to the sound of him knocking over what sounds like every shampoo bottle in the world. He curses, loudly, and even through the thick layer of familiar self-loathing Pete can’t help a little bit of a grin. It’s gone as soon as it registers. 

Patrick opens the door quietly, like he thinks Pete’s asleep. 

“Pete?” he asks, still quiet. Pete doesn’t bother to answer, keeps his eyes closed as Patrick settles down in the bed across from him. 

When Patrick’s finally snoring softly, very definitely asleep, Pete lets his eyes slit open. There’s a little light coming in through the curtains, enough to see a suggestion of messy hair and a limp hand hanging off the edge of the bed. 

Pete turns over and stares at the wall until an hour or so after dawn, when his brain finally gives out and he sleeps for a few hours.

-o-

The show the night after is awkward, stilted, Pete keeping his feet nailed to the stage and Patrick glancing at him constantly out of the corners of his eyes. Joe tries to pick up the slack and Andy plays his heart out but it’s not enough, the crowd is shit and they’re pretty close to turning on them by the end of the set.

Patrick hustles everyone offstage practically the second they’ve finished the last song, stomping off with tightly controlled motions to terrorize some techs. Pete sneaks off and out of the venue before Patrick can come looking for him because he’s under no illusions whether Patrick will. 

Fuck, Patrick’ll probably try to skin him if he’s not happy with whatever explanation Pete has to give. Pete has to grin tiredly because, sex-crisis or not, he still has the best taste in tiny singers. 

His bass gets slung into the backseat of the van with a lack of care that would normally have Pete wincing. He just doesn’t have it in himself to give a shit anymore, leaning back against the side of the van and drumming his knuckles on the chilly metal. He doesn’t have time to dive back into the scene, even if he’d been feeling like it. They have to move again soon. 

“Hey,” Joe says, and Pete jumps about a mile. 

“Jesus _fuck_ , Trohman,” he wheezes, clutching at his chest. “Where did you come from?” 

“Heaven, probably,” Joes says and grins. Pete flips him off and slumps back against the side of the van. His heart is still pounding. 

“Stump send you?” he asks a few seconds later when it becomes obvious Joe is perfectly content to stand there rocking back and forth on his heels. 

“He’s a little concerned,” Joe says noncommittally, which Pete interprets to mean yes. He quirks a little bit of a smile. Patrick is _so_ not as oblique as he wishes he was. 

“He’s a worrier,” Pete pushes off from the side of the van and hops from one foot to the other, trying to get feeling back into his toes. The night is fucking _cold_. “I’m fine, though. Let’s go rescue Hurley from the crowd, we have places to be tonight.” 

He follows Joe back into the venue. He’s gonna be fine, this is just another thing to get through.

-o-

Patrick has a hand in his hair and a hand on his dick, grinding Pete's cheek into the wall while he jerks Pete off with his free hand. Pete's elbows are braced, trying to fight, trying to get room to breathe because his lip is split and his knees ache like he's been on them for hours. Patrick's got too much leverage, though, pressed up along Pete’s back.

He does something clever with his hand, thumb twisting over the head of Pete's cock, and Pete coughs out a groan. It sounds wrecked. 

“You look so good on your knees, Pete,” Patrick laughs in his ear. “You're the prettiest little cockslut I ever saw. Your fucking _mouth_ , Jesus.” He sounds halfway angry, rough and possessive. 

“Fuck you, _fuck_ ,” he grits out and tries to push back, to escape. All he ends up doing is fucking his cock into Patrick's grip and it feels so good, so fucking good he does it again and again. His cheek is bruising against the gritty wall and it hurts and Pete can tell Patrick’s hard from the bulge rubbing against his ass and it's all too fucking good. 

“God you're so fucking gorgeous,” he hears Patrick moan in his ear. He does the thing with his thumb again, just this side of too rough and too good. Pete cries out, comes all over the wall with the taste of blood in his mouth and-

-o-

He wakes up with his boxers sticky and wet and uncomfortable. He's alone, the van seems to have stopped and he can't hear anyone. It's just him and a dream of Patrick's voice in his ear.

His chest feels strangely empty. He doesn’t examine the feeling. 

He doesn’t sleep either, anxious energy curdling in the pit of his stomach. Normally he’d go to Patrick and annoy him into letting Pete cuddle up but he doesn’t. He refuses to examine that, either. 

He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s got it together and he’s totally, utterly fine.

-o-

The end of the tour comes crashing right through Pete and leaves him at loose ends. He’s got some space, from Patrick at least if not his stupid emotions.

School doesn’t really hold his attention anymore. Not classes, not teachers, not homework. Nothing does, except band practice. Hurley’s quietly joined, without anyone actually saying a word, and Patrick’s stepped way the fuck up in the wake of the tour. Everything’s going fucking _swimmingly_ on that front, or it would be if Pete could get it together. 

He’s just. 

He’s not _dealing_ very well. With loving Patrick. 

So he might start avoiding the guys a little outside of band practice. He doesn’t really think it’s that noticeable. He’s got homework anyway, and other friends he’s been neglecting.

-o-

Obviously, ‘not that noticeable’ has different values for Patrick than for Pete because Pete opens his door three weeks after the end of tour to find Patrick standing on his doorstep, panting, glaring so hard Pete’s pretty sure he’s about to pop a blood vessel or something. Pete's heart, annoyingly, skips a beat.

“Patrick,” he says, and blinks. Patrick growls wordlessly in answer and shoves past him, stomping down the hall and pausing only to say a marginally polite hello to Pete’s mom before continuing to stomp up the stairs in the direction of Pete’s room. 

Pete follows, exchanging startled looks with his mom. 

Patrick’s in his room, as expected, standing by the window and tapping a foot. He’s still glaring with apocalyptic anger and Pete might maybe feel a little thrill of actual fear. He comes in anyway, closes his door behind him and leans against it, tries on a grin. He gets the feeling, when Patrick snorts, that he’s not very convincing. 

“You’re avoiding us,” he opens with, and Pete feels himself wilt so fast he almost slides down the door. He suddenly can’t meet Patrick’s eyes, putting his gaze on his shuffling feet instead. 

“I’m not,” he tells his socks. 

“Pete,” Patrick growls, and Pete drums his toes a little. “We haven’t seen you at all outside of band practice for weeks. You’re not answering your phone.”

“I’m really not avoiding you guys,” he says without moving his gaze from the wiggling ends of his socks, “I’m just dealing with some shit at school and it’s really taking up my time, it’s-,” 

“ _Pete_ ,” Patrick interrupts, and it’s the most serious he’s said Pete’s name maybe ever. Pete blinks and looks up despite himself, surprised. 

Patrick looks a little deranged, hair sticking out from under his hat at improbable angles, cheeks flushed high over the cheekbones, eyes glittering fiercely. His arms are thrown out and he looks seconds from tackling Pete and putting him in a headlock. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Patrick continues. Pete flinches because, fuck, Patrick’s voice sounds so _hurt_. “But shit, man, you have to talk to someone. If not me then Joe, or fuck, Andy. Someone. We’re worried.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Pete says softly. He’s not even sure if he’s lying or not.

Patrick doesn’t believe him, his expression pulling away, going distant and unhappy. Pete wants to drag the words back, twist them up until they come out the right ones to make Patrick forgive him, but for he once he just doesn't have any words left. Instead he balls up his fists in the sleeves of his hoodie and rocks back on his heels. He can’t meet Patrick’s eyes again. 

“If you say so, Pete,” Patrick says. He sounds defeated, and he leaves soon after. They don’t talk about anything important, not even band stuff. Just meaningless conversation, the kind of thing Pete has all the time with total strangers. It all makes Pete want to scream but he doesn’t, just takes his bass down as soon as Patrick’s out the door and plays until his fingertips burn. 

He perfects the bassline for Pretty in Punk. It doesn’t feel like as much of an achievement as Pete expects it to.

-o-

He adjusts.

He doesn’t talk to anyone and definitely not to Andy or Joe, but he does adjust. 

He doesn’t exactly have a choice; he might be _in love_ with Patrick but Patrick is still his best friend and Fall Out Boy is still his band. They’re being scouted, putting out music, getting big. The kind of thing he knew they were capable of but didn’t want to pin his hopes on. 

Patrick doesn’t mention any of it again, but his relieved expression the first time Pete kidnaps him from school and the way he doesn’t even protest the customary gigantic pink smoothie is really speaking, anyway. Pete deals with the kick of guilt in his chest and swallows down the ever-present desire to just cling to Patrick and never let go. He’s a needy shit, but he’s got a handle on things now. 

He’s fine, just fine.

-o-

Fueled by Ramen calls Patrick and Pete hears later, from Trohman because Patrick refuses to talk about it, that Patrick had assumed that it was a prank.

Not that Pete really blames him because the deal they’re being offered is kind of too good to be true. 

But Pete gets the call later and sets up a meeting. Tries his damnedest, his real damnedest, to sound professional. He saves his hyperventilating and panicking for when he calls Patrick afterwards. He succeeds, as far as he can tell. The meeting gets scheduled at least, so he can’t have actually started speaking gibberish like he’d felt like he had. 

Patrick speaks enough gibberish for the both of them, anyway.

-o-

“We’re not a very big label, but we’re getting some traction in the alternative rock and emo scene and we think you could work for us,” Stevenson says.

Pete feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his _skin_ he’s so excited, but he locks his hands around his knees and smiles his most sane smile. 

“What are you offering?” Patrick asks. 

Two hours later they walk out of the office, ink not even dry on their contract, the money for a _whole album_ coming their way, and Pete can feel something big and loud and fizzy bubbling up under his ribs. He tries to keep it in while they’re in the building, though. It’s bad form, he’s pretty sure, to start screaming and throwing things. 

They get down onto the street before someone breaks. 

It’s Joe, he’s shouting wordlessly and slamming around, into Andy and Pete and Patrick, bouncing off the walls and headbanging so hard he almost falls over before Andy grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him around a little. He’s grinning so hard his cheeks look like they hurt, bouncing a little too, and Pete feels so full up of love he wants to roll around on the ground. 

When he turns to look at Patrick he’s flushed, brilliant, grinning so hard it looks like his face is about to break. He’s the happiest Pete’s ever seen him, eyes shining and hat tipped back so far on his head it’s threatening to fall off. 

Pete just. 

Pete can’t _help himself_. 

Patrick makes a surprised noise when Pete grabs him by the shoulders and yanks him around, quickly muffled as Pete presses their lips together. 

It’s hurried, rushed, the best moment of Pete’s life probably. Patrick’s mouth is _perfect_ , soft and hot and just like Pete thought it would be. He doesn’t move, doesn’t kiss back, but Pete tells himself it's because he’s pulling back and throwing himself at Joe before Patrick has a chance to. 

“Yes, motherfucker! Group hug!” Pete screams at Joe, trying to climb him like a monkey, and pretends like his hands aren’t still trembling. No one seems to have noticed anything, to have anything to say about Pete kissing Patrick, and Patrick doesn’t pull him away to punch him or anything. 

When Pete glances back at Patrick he’s staring into space, expression bemused, mouth slightly open. As Pete watches he shakes himself, grins, and follows Pete into the group hug.

-o-

“You dropped out,” Joe says, and his tone is inscrutable.

“Yep,” Pete says, popping the P and keeping his head down over his bass. He can feel Patrick’s laser stare burning into the side of his head. Joe’s too, and Andy’s, but Pete’s always been a little hyperaware of Patrick, comparatively. 

“Entirely? Not just a, a gap semester?” Andy asks. He sounds more genuinely disinterested than Joe, bless him. Pete swallows down a laugh; Patrick’s volcanic rage is scorching his cheek. 

“You had three months, dude,” Joe observes, and now the carefully nonjudgmental tone in his voice is very obviously deliberate. Pete grins down at his fingers. 

“Did I?” he asks innocently. 

That is, apparently, Patrick’s limit. 

He throws up his hands, dropping the drumstick he’d been holding to clatter on the ground. Pete risks a glance over to admire his handiwork. 

Patrick’s _bright_ red, almost to the point of glowing. He opens his mouth and then closes it, a couple of times, probably searching for the words to articulate just how much of an idiot Pete is. His hair is practically bristling under his hat. Pete loves angry Patrick, despite the fact that it usually ends in him getting punched. He’s just, he gets a thrill out of it. He doesn’t want to examine it too closely. 

“You did _what_?” Patrick demands. 

“Dropped out,” he says and widens his eyes innocently at Patrick. “Of DePaul.” 

Patrick makes a high-pitched noise so much like a tea kettle Pete gets the mental image of steam curling out of Patrick’s ears and snickers before he can help himself. Patrick doesn’t take the laugh well, judging by the dark expression that crosses his face. And the way he grabs Pete by the back of his shirt and drags him out of the room. 

“What the _fuck_ , Pete?” he demands a few feet down the hallway, waving his arms wildly around. “Just… What the _fuck?_ ” 

“I think we’ve covered that one,” Pete says, inspecting his nails. He sees Patrick fold his arm and glare coldly out of the corner of his eye. 

“Do you take _anything_ seriously?” Patrick asks, tone disparaging. 

And normally Pete wouldn’t take any of that to heart. No one gets to judge his life but him, most of the time. He’s got enough critics in his head as it is. But... this is Patrick. It hurts a little, coming from him. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one except maybe Joe that took this _band_ a hundred percent seriously,” Pete shoots back sharply. 

Patrick winces. 

“I... sorry, that wasn't fair,” he begins, making an aborted motion in his direction. Pete shrugs that away. 

“No, I get it. I fuck around a lot. But we’re signed now, we have a real chance, and I _need_ to take it. I can’t half-ass this.” 

Patrick stares at him for a minute, searching for something. Pete isn’t sure what, but he meets Patrick’s eyes without making a joke for once. 

“I’m just worried, dude,” Patrick sighs at last, and pulls on the bill of his cap like he’s embarrassed. Pete pushes away the sincerity, the seriousness, the lingering hurt, reaches for his normal attitude and pulls it back into place like a comforting blanket. 

“I can go to college anytime,” he says, and grins when Patrick rolls his eyes right on time probably despite himself. “How often do I get to be part of a world famous band, though?” 

“You don’t know we’ll be famous,” Patrick argues half-heartedly as Pete slings an arm around his shoulders. “We could totally suck a load of dick and die in obscurity.” 

“No chance, Ricksta!” Pete says, smushes a messy kiss to Patrick’s cheek and ignores his desire to kiss him for real. “We’re gonna be _huge_.”

-o-

So they get a little huge.

Not like, super huge, they’re not Kiss or anything, but they actually get banned from a few venues for crowd reasons and Pete can’t really process that. It’s building too, all the hype and press and attention. It’s massive, this thing that they’re standing on the precipice of. Life-changing, Pete can’t help but think, and it feels realer than ever. It’s the kind of crushing thing that sends him to lose his shit quietly to himself in the bathroom for hours at the time. 

Patrick is his savior, yanking him out of bathrooms and his own thoughts in his quiet, implacable Patrick way. 

He sits through Pete’s manic ranting, panicking. His down days, when he can’t stop his mouth from running and he can’t get the rest of his body to do much of anything. He sticks around through all that and only yells at Pete once, when Pete tries to say he should wash out. 

Because he’s by far the least talented musician in the band and he _has_ to be holding them back. 

“You shut your fucking mouth, Wentz, or I’ll break your fucking nose,” Patrick had hissed after hours of arguing, and that had been the last word he’d hear about it. Joe and Andy had backed him up and Pete had swallowed his inadequacies, or tried. It’s hard but it’s something. 

It’s something.

-o-

Song-writing is one of those things that Pete isn’t sure if he loves or hates.

When it’s bad, it’s _nasty_ , leads to shouting and stifling silences and sometimes black eyes, though he’s getting better about that. Growing as a person or some shit. 

When it’s good, though, sometimes Pete is so overwhelmed with his adoration for Patrick that he has to do something about it. Like now, when Patrick’s sitting in the puddle of sunlight by the window, headphones jammed over his hat and wearing a million hoodies. The sunlight is glinting magnificently off his sideburns. Pete’s pretty sure he recognizes one of the hoodies as his. It’s making his heart hurt a little. 

“Patrick, you are the spring to the winter of my heart!” he carols, throwing himself at Patrick. Patrick yelps and tries to fend off his elbows, only partly succeeding. Piles of sheet music go flying in every direction. Pete manages to land a solid hit on his stomach, folding Patrick over and giving Pete an opening to crawl into his lap. 

“Pete, no. Go away,” Patrick says, but he sounds resigned and he’s put his laptop on the floor and Pete knows when he’s won. He grins and wraps his arms around Patrick’s neck in a faux-swoon. Patrick attempts to heave him off, which he should know is futile by now. 

“Patrick,” he whispers in Patrick’s ear. Patrick twitches a little but otherwise refuses to acknowledge his words. That’s alright, he can’t avoid hearing Pete now. “Patrick, you’re my soulmate.”

Patrick grabs him under his arms, digging in his fingers and wiggling. Pete screeches and jumps back, falling backwards out of Patrick’s lap. Patrick catches him by the shoulder at the last second and glares at him. 

Pete is reminded unpleasantly of the scene in the Lion King when Scar is about to kill Mufasa. 

“Please don’t drop me,” Pete says. “I’m too pretty to die.”

Patrick pauses for a few seconds to process this and says, “Wentz, you’re a piece of shit.” 

Pete grins winningly and says, “But I’m _your_ piece of shit.” 

Patrick drops him right on his ass and studiously ignores the way Pete warbles ‘I’m falling for you, Tricky Rick’, except to kick him in the thigh once.

-o-

Pete bursts into Patrick’s basement with the kind of manic energy that he privately thinks should leave cartoonish speed-lines in the air.

“ _Warped fucking Tour_ , motherfuckers,” Pete screams, and tackles Andy. 

Or tries, really, Pete is tiny and Andy is a solid mountain of drummer muscle. He seems about as moved as his rocky counterparts at Pete’s antics. Instead of letting himself be climbed he locks an arm around Pete’s waist and hoists him up, carrying him bodily over to where Patrick’s sitting in his customary spot. 

“I think this is yours,” he says, and dumps Pete on Patrick. 

“Thanks ever so,” Patrick says dryly, and Pete makes an impatient noise because _how are they so calm when they are doing Warped fucking Tour what the fuck guys_. 

“Warped,” he gets out in a strangled tone, pressing a hand over Patrick’s whole face and totally coincidentally getting his fingers in Patrick’s mouth, “Tour.” 

“Phttthgm!” Patrick says. 

“We heard you the first time,” Joe agrees. Pete discounts him because he is more likely than not stoned out of his skull and bounces off of Patrick, hopping from one foot to the other. 

“We’re getting a bigass tour bus and doing Warped fucking Tour,” he chants in one breath. 

Unexpectedly Patrick’s arm settles around his shoulders, pressing him down and holding him in place. It’s gentle but implacable and Pete feels some of the restless, endless energy slip away. It’s like being pressed back into his skin and he leans into it without thinking about it. 

He also pops a semi but he’s so used to it at the point he doesn’t even register it as a tertiary concern next to _Warped fucking Tour_. 

“We get a tour bus guys!” he yelps, bouncing in the limited space Patrick’s restricting grip allows. 

“We know,” Joe says. 

Patrick shakes him with the arm he has around Pete’s shoulder. He’s grinning, sly and happy. 

“Pack your toothbrush, I guess,” he says. 

Pete totally forgets to pack his toothbrush.

-o-

Tour buses are really fucking different from tiny, shitty vans.

“This is way different than your shitty van, Trohman,” Pete says and bounces up the steps. 

“Fuck you too, Wentz, my van is a treasure,” Joe says mildly, following at a more sedate pace. Andy and Patrick are already inside, and it looks like they’re arguing over who gets what bunk. Patrick apparently wants to be on the ground level. 

“Which one do I get?” Joe asks, sounding a little less zen. 

Pete throws himself into the left one on the ground and refuses to come out, effectively deciding what bunk Joe gets. 

It’s a day and a half till their first Warped show and Pete can’t _wait_.

-o-

“The stage fucking _collapsed_ ,” Pete says and he can hear the awe in his own voice.

“It fucking did,” Andy says back, just as awed, and he’s twitching around a little with too much energy. It’s a testament to how much it’s gotten to Andy, their success. 

“We’re gonna rule the fucking _world_.” he crows. He doesn’t think he’ll ever come down from this high.

-o-

He opens his eyes and he's in a dark room, tiny, four bare walls and a door cracked open enough for a little flickering light to shine through. The floor is cold, gritty, and Pete is barefoot.

He’s alone. The kind of alone that rises up like bile in the back of his throat until he’s choking on it, thin and cold and desperate. He gags and slams through the door because there's nowhere else to go. 

He knows it’s a nightmare and it doesn’t help at all. Fear is icy and hurting in his veins. 

The light in the hallway outside his little room is orange, flickering and dim. Industrial carpet under his feet, thin and dirty. Bare plaster walls, stained and dented. Intersecting, identical hallways at both ends. Nothing else. No one else. 

It's utterly still, except for the flicker of the lights, and Pete starts to run. 

He turns to the left, and left again, and then right, and then left, and then he loses track because it’s just endless flickering orange hallways, empty and cold. He's screaming, noise bouncing off the silent walls. It multiplies until Pete starts to think someone else is screaming too and the thought almost brings him to his knees with fear. 

It’s cold and dark and Pete’s alone. It’s _cold_ and _dark_ and _Pete’s alone_. 

He keeps running anyway. There has to be someone, or something, some way out or something at all other than blank institutional hallways. 

He turns the corner and slams into the door with no warning, no indication that it’s coming. Air isn’t coming fast enough, he can’t stop screaming, and his heart is slamming breathless and panicky in his chest. He scrabbles at the metal with his fingertips and then slams on it with the palms of his hands when he discovers no doorknob. He's still screaming, endlessly. 

“Pete?” he hears, from the outside of the door. He recognizes Andy's voice, puzzled and worried, and starts sobbing through his screams, because he _isn't alone_. 

“Andy, Andy, fuck!” he screams, and-

-o-

“Pete!” Andy's got him by the shoulders, shaking him hard enough his neck hurts. Pete shoves him off and leans out over the edge of his bunk, gagging. Andy jumps away but nothing comes up.

Pete's throat is sore and dry when he finally stops coughing. He can feel phantom gritty plaster under his fingernails. 

“Fuck, dude,” Andy says gently. “You were screaming.” 

“I was dreaming,” Pete says shakily. It doesn't sound like a question but Andy nods anyway, solemnly. “I was dreaming,” he repeats, and tries to get his hands to let go of the sheets. 

Andy touches his arm and stays there until Pete’s stopped shaking before he leaves, making mindless small-talk in a gentle voice. It’s not enough, not even close, but it’s as much as he can expect Andy to give. He needs sleep too. 

He gives up on getting back to sleep in an hour. He can’t stop his head from racing, his stomach from turning, his hands from shaking. It’s nothing new, he’s had nightmares before. But he hasn’t had a bad one in a while. And he can’t stand the thought of being alone. 

Cuddling up to Patrick to sleep is something he hasn’t done in a while. Self-preservation, mostly, and an effort to not wake up in the morning rubbing one out on Patrick’s leg. 

He’s too shaken and fucked-up to take any pleasure in the thought, which is reassuring. He just needs human contact, and Patrick, and the two together most of all. Pete’s dick probably won’t take an interest in _anything_ for the rest of the night, so it’s safe. It’s safe and he needs it. 

Patrick’s bunk is warm and kind of smelly. Patrick-smelly, which Pete is used to and maybe even kind of finds comforting. Patrick is a curled-up lump against the wall that twitches and huffs when Pete climbs in and presses his face against his shoulder. 

“Pete?” Patrick asks fuzzily, uncurling a little. Pete makes a noise that’s supposed to be reassuring. Supposed to make Patrick fall back to sleep so Pete can lie down and not talk about anything and not think, most importantly. 

“‘S been a while,” Patrick says, heaving himself around, and he sounds so sad. Pete curses under his breath and pulls back. He gets to about the edge of the bunk before Patrick’s arm descends around his chest, pulling him into a warm Patrick-hug, and Pete can’t find it in himself to fight it. 

“Yeah,” he concedes a breath later, relaxing and letting himself be held. “It has.” 

“Nightmares?” Patrick asks. He still sounds sleepy, a little sad, and Pete nods. Patrick doesn’t say anything after that, falls asleep a while later still wrapped around Pete. 

Pete falls asleep restlessly, hours later, but he doesn’t have any more nightmares. It’s all he can really expect.

-o-

Pete has _maybe_ been awake since three, possibly four in the morning, a fact that is absolutely no one's business. He’s on his second pot of sugary, delicious coffee, which is likewise absolutely no one’s business. He’d had a dream, one of _those_ dreams, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it until he’d done a couple of laps of the parking lot. Or a couple _hundred_ , no big deal. He needs the exercise anyway.

“Move over, motherfuckers,” Pete crows and elbows his way past Joe to the coffeepot with his empty mug. Patrick's sitting at the tiny table with a mug of his own in hand, expression sleep-dazed despite it being past noon. He's got his feet tucked into the legs of his baggy pajama bottoms and it's fucking adorable. 

Patrick breathes a little easier for the first time since he woke up because there's nothing more different to dream-Patrick than real-Patrick before he’s gotten through his first mug of coffee. 

“Nice jams, Patty,” he says sweetly and throws himself gracelessly into the seat across the table. 

Patrick sneers at him elegantly over the rim of his mug and doesn't respond. 

“Little bears,” Pete notes. “Excellent choice.”

Patrick doesn’t say a word, doesn’t let his expression shift a millimeter. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor in the mornings, Pete’s found. He likes to exploit the fact for maximum reaction. 

“Patrick’s gonna get you later,” Joe says offhandedly. Pete scoffs and rolls his eyes before looking back at Patrick. Patrick’s smirking at him, nasty-sharp and meaningful over the dining table. 

Abruptly all Pete can think about is last night's dream, forcing his lungs shut. 

He remembers, vividly and harsh the way everything he doesn’t want to think about feels when it intrudes. Pete on his hands and knees, Patrick's fingers in him, three of them, his hole slick and used from being fucked once already. Patrick's come leaking out, down Pete’s shaking thighs, and Pete’s throat had hurt from how much screaming he’d been doing. He’d been crying, he remembers, or close enough. Strain and overstimulation making his cheeks hot and wet and Patrick had kissed his tears. Called him beautiful. 

It had felt so good, is the part that's fucking Pete up, it had felt like love and being loved. Warmth and trust, the knowledge Patrick wanted him deep in his chest despite the tears, lingering until Pete opened his eyes and remembered it was a dream. 

He can't meet Patrick's eyes and he feels sick to his stomach, on top of being hard in his pants. It's difficult to talk to him even when Patrick wakes up enough to do most of the work, and he pretty much resorts to monosyllabic words. Eventually Patrick snorts in frustration, calls him a dick, and leaves. 

Fucking story of Pete's _life_ , for real.

-o-

He locks himself in the convenient bus bathroom and loses his shit just a little.

Over the past year Pete's had a shit-ton of practice at repressing all Patrick-related sexy thoughts. He's gotten really good at it, perfected the art of jacking off with all traces of reddish hair and obstinate expression carefully scrubbed out. He could teach the book on practically humping someone onstage while still maintaining the platonic bro-ship. It really only becomes a problem when the Patrick-sex dreams show up, and even then he's got a method for dealing. 

Give it a few months of slightly less touchy-feely, some mindless shitty porn, a few melodramatic and deliberately obtuse notebooks full of pseudo-poetry, and Pete will be fine. Patrick-scale reset to zero. Back to total platonic bro-land. 

He just needs to forget the feeling of Patrick inside him, Patrick touching him, Patrick loving him the same volatile, ugly, needy way Pete loves him. He can do it. Pete is the _king_ of repression. 

God, but he needs to get laid or in a fight or _something_. Something to get it all out of his head.

-o-

He doesn’t get laid, and he doesn’t get in a fight.

He’s not sure why, would attribute it to growing the fuck up a little bit except that the tension is still boiling under his skin and making him snap at everyone around him. Andy rolls his eyes and Joe ignores him, and it’s not the reaction Pete’s looking for. He knows he’s looking in the wrong place, but he doesn’t want to think about that. 

It’s been four days and Patrick’s told him to fuck off exactly twenty four times so far. 

Pete is keeping count on a set of index cards he’d found in a cupboard, holding each one up to Joe at the other end of the bus and cracking up silently. Patrick's in a bit of a mood for some reason - Pete being a bit of a bitch definitely doesn’t have anything to do with it, probably - and Pete is too much of an asshole to pass that up. 

The twenty fifth time - “Fuck _off_ , Pete!” - is accompanied with a sucker-punch to the stomach. Patrick storms off, hat yanked low on his head and laptop under his arm. Pete watches him go from where he’s curled up on the ground. Joe is laughing so hard he’s in danger of falling out of his seat and normally Pete would be all over that, milking it for all the attention he can get, but... 

But he got _hard_ , and he doesn't want anyone to know. So he stays facedown on the stinky, dirty carpet and contemplates where his life went wrong.

-o-

He's lying across a pile of pillows and he's not sure where he is.

He shifts uneasily, becoming aware of how naked he is. It’s not a situation he’s unfamiliar with, being naked in an unfamiliar room, but it’s never pleasant. Without thinking he makes an unhappy sound and tries to get up. 

“Wait, hey, hey,” he hears a familiar voice saying and then Patrick is behind him, hands smoothing down his bare back to his ass. He becomes immediately, acutely aware of Patrick's solid warm bulk between his legs. 

“Patrick, what-,” he asks, panicking a little, and Patrick pauses. 

“D'you want to stop, Pete?” he asks gently. It’s the tone of voice he uses when Pete’s freaking out for no reason and it just makes Pete’s panic worse. 

Pete makes a confused noise and starts to thrash a little because he doesn't know where he _is_ , he doesn't know what's going _on_ , not even Patrick's familiar hands are enough to calm him down. He’s naked and Patrick’s there and that’s everything he wants but he doesn’t know how it happened. 

Patrick echoes his bewildered noise and helps him up, pulling him into Patrick's lap and wrapping warm arms around him. It's normal, Patrick-cuddling when Pete gets squirrelly, and he relaxes. 

The realization that Patrick's naked too gets him insidiously, the slow revelation of more skin than he's used to, the brush of hair against his back where he's used to being hoodies and shirts. It’s more arousing than simple nakedness should be, Patrick comfortable without hiding his body away, comfortable with _Pete_ seeing. 

Then he realizes he's sitting on Patrick's dick, half-hard still, and his own cock jumps because he's suddenly completely aware of what this all means. 

“Patrick?” he asks, not sure what he's asking for. In response Patrick smooths a hand down his chest, stopping just short of Pete's hardening cock. He probably means it to be comforting. It’s the sexiest thing Pete’s ever felt. 

“Yeah, Pete?” he asks carefully. 

Pete rolls his hips back, against Patrick's dick. It's not perfect, the angle is awful and he doesn't have enough leverage, but Patrick moans anyway. It’s a surprised sound, and Pete feels him getting harder with every shallow motion. He’d lied before, _this_ is the sexiest thing he’d ever felt. 

“Fuck me,” Pete whispers. He feels dislocated, completely out of his depth, and so suddenly turned-on that it throbs just on the edge of painful. Patrick groans and pushes him forward, back over the pile of pillows. 

Pete recognizes the position now, knows the way it puts his ass up in the air, splays his legs. He feels like he's _presenting_ , slutty and dirty, and his cock is too trapped against the cool, smooth cotton of a pillow for friction. It gets to him, makes his cheeks flush and his hand clutch at the fabric before he can force himself to relax. 

It gets to Patrick too, if the bitten-off hiss is evidence. 

“Fucking _Christ_ , Pete,” he swears. His register is so low Pete can barely recognize it, all rumbling consonants and spitting sibilants, and he thrusts involuntarily against the pillow at the sound. “God, you look so good. I want to fuck you so hard you can't _walk_.” 

“Do it, fucking _do it_ ,” Pete says, makes his tone intentionally challenging. He wants Patrick's cock inside him, deep and hard and rough. 

Patrick growls and leans over him, one arm by his head and the other digging blunt fingernails into his hip. 

“See, I know you're trying to provoke me,” he whispers in Pete's ear. His tone is measured, steady, and so thick with arousal Pete shakes with it. “But I'm feeling nice, so you'll get what you want.” 

Pete nearly cries out when he feels the blunt head of Patrick's cock pressing against his entrance, pushing back against it as much as he can. 

The first press _burns_ , just a little, stretch and slide torturously slow. Patrick is slicked up and apparently he’d been prepared before but Pete is still tight. He can hear himself whining, shrill and needy, pressing back with his hips in a silent plea for more. Patrick gives it to him, so slow Pete feels like he's going to go _insane_ , an inch at a time. 

By the time Patrick is fully seated in him Pete feels breathlessly full, like Patrick's cock is pressing against his lungs. He pants with it, it feels like he can't get enough air in the best possible way. 

When Patrick doesn't move again Pete whines and tries to rock back against his cock. It works, barely, a scrap of friction that makes him cry out. 

Patrick growls and pulls out, thrusts forward, too much too fast and Pete screams with it. He wants, he wants. 

Patrick slams into him, then again, maddeningly regular. Drumming rhythm, he realizes abstractly, and the thought makes him cry out because the thought of being an instrument for Patrick, Patrick's genius fingers inside him pressing music out of him, _making him into_ music... God, he can't stand it. It's all he wants, to disappear into this. 

“Oh, fuck, Pete,” Patrick grunts out with each thrust. Pete sobs out a moan in answer, rough and needy. It’s hard, Patrick’s going so fast, but he tries to shove back into it. 

“Patrick!” he cries out, and-

-o-

Pete's eyes snap open and Patrick is inches from his face, staring at him.

Pete can't parse Patrick's expression, he's bare seconds from coming and his brain is still full of the feeling of Patrick inside him, all around him, pressing him down and fucking into him. 

“Patrick,” he says, or tries to. It comes out sounding like a moan and Patrick jerks back. His expression is more startled than Pete’s ever seen it, so surprised it’s comical except for how it really, really isn’t. He swallows down his panicked noise and coughs until his voice sounds less hoarse, less needy. “What?”

“You were-,” Patrick says after a moment, and pauses like he’s looking for the best word. “Whimpering,” he decides. “I thought you were having a nightmare.” 

“Wasn’t,” Pete manages to get out. It’s an actual effort to keep his hands from dropping to his cock. He’s so hard, and so close, and _Patrick is there_ and fuck, fuck. He’s always kind of had a thing for being watched and holy fuck the idea of Patrick watching him come isn’t one he needs right now. “I’m fine, ‘Rick.” 

Patrick watches him quietly for a second and there’s something too familiar about the way he does it, eyes shadowed in the dark, something knowing in the tilt of his head. Pete can’t remember what about it seems like a memory, déjà vu running over his skin in a shiver. 

“Right,” Patrick says at last, and steps back. The curtain falls back into place and Pete holds his breath in the almost total darkness, hearing Patrick move back to his bunk and climb in. The sheets rustle for a few moments and then there’s nothing but silence. 

Pete breathes out and presses the heel of his hand on his aching cock. It’s good, so fucking good Pete wants to scream, but Patrick can’t possibly be asleep yet. The thought makes Pete hiss in a breath, as quiet as he can but still not quiet enough. Patrick can probably hear him. He remembers Patrick’s eyes on him, the odd familiarity, and shoves his hand into his boxers. 

He’s coming in seconds, silent and shaking. It’s unsatisfying, leaves him edgy. When he falls asleep it’s to feverish, unpleasant dreams he doesn’t remember very well.

-o-

Patrick doesn’t meet his eyes the next day, and Pete spends the whole time in a state of constant panic. Because there’s no way Patrick can _know_ , right? Pete’s been beyond careful, the kind of paranoid he’s pretty sure qualifies him for psychiatric care, hasn’t slipped up once.

He runs through last night’s conversation more times than he can count and yeah, Patrick probably knew Pete was having a sex dream. But he can hardly be feeling awkward about it, they’ve all caught each other doing things they wished they hadn’t. Patrick doesn’t have any reason to get all weird about Pete doing something perfectly natural in his own bunk when they’ve all caught each other doing much worse things. 

It’s a good thing they don’t have a show that day, a gap day to wind down in supposedly. It probably wouldn’t be a great show and Pete hopes that even after all this blows up spectacularly there’s still a band for Pete to be in. He’s kind of getting used to the whole popularity thing. 

Despite the panic Pete’s maybe a little glad for the space. It's fucking him up a little, dream-Patrick fucking him, and then real-Patrick who doesn't even let Pete touch him half the time. He needs the room to compartmentalize.

-o-

The day after, Pete is pretty sure he’s done something terrible in the past few months without knowing it because this has to be karma paying him back for something.

Now Patrick won’t stop _watching_ him. 

He’s not trying to be subtle about it either, following Pete around the bus with his eyes until Pete’s about to fucking jump out of his skin. They still haven’t talked about anything, not that Pete is totally sure what they even need to talk about, but there has to be something because Patrick is fucking staring at him and won’t look away until Pete tries to meet his gaze. 

It’s getting to Pete so bad it isn’t even funny. Tension and arousal scratching under Pete’s skin worse than ever, in almost equal measure. He’s a little bit of an exhibitionist, probably, and Patrick’s eyes on him is the kind of thing Pete has wet dreams about. 

Sporting a semi all the time wasn’t fun in high school and it hasn’t improved since then. 

About halfway through the evening he snaps and stands up from table with a wordless noise of frustration, tossing the pile of music he’s supposed to be practicing onto the tabletop and storming towards his bunk. 

“Take a picture, Stump, it’ll last longer,” he turns to snap and Patrick laughs. It sends a prickle of electricity through him because, fuck, he knows this laugh from his _dreams_. It’s the sex laugh, the laugh that drags over his skin. 

“Maybe,” he says, and turns away. Pete stares at him for a moment before going to his bunk. He’s under no illusions that it’s a retreat.

-o-

Two and a half days is Pete’s limit for pod-person levels of Patrick acting weird. He drags Patrick to the back of the gas station they stop at in the afternoon. It’s not terribly classy, it mostly smells like shit and looks dirty as fuck, but it's the closest to privacy they're gonna get. As far as the backdrop for important conversations go in Pete’s life it’s pretty par for the course.

“You have to tell me why the fuck you’ve been staring, man,” he says when he’s sure they’re alone. He's aiming for joking with his tone, and he’s pretty sure he does a good job. “It’s been messing with me pretty hard.” 

“You love me,” Patrick says with a shrug, smug as a motherfucker. 

And Pete feels terror crash through him, sudden and cold and so sharp. 

Patrick knows, Patrick _knows_ , how can Patrick _know_. Pete had been so careful, beyond careful, and he has no idea what could have given him away. 

“What?” he asks, too late to be convincing. It’s all he can do to talk and swallow back bile at the same time. His stomach is churning and he can’t meet Patrick’s eyes directly. 

Panic energy is buzzing under his skin, thoughts whirring so fast all he gets are panicked fragments. He knows Patrick won’t hit him, or at least won’t mean it the way Pete’s scared of, but. There's no possible universe in which this ends well for Pete. Patrick is going to walk away and leave forever and Pete is going to lose his best friend, his soulmate. 

“I didn’t think it was true at first, but I’m right, aren’t I?” Patrick asks softly. “You do love me. Like, really truly.” 

“I don’t-,” Pete tries to say, but Patrick raises an eyebrow and Pete’s words tangle up over his tongue and die. 

“Fuck you, Wentz,” Patrick says. He's still got the fucking eyebrow raised, and Pete hates him a little. “You're a liar. Want to try again?”

“I don't love you,” Pete tries to lie. The words choke off into a high-pitched noise of surprise when Patrick steps forward, deliberately into Pete’s space. Pete’s taking a step back before his can help himself, into the wall of the gas station, feeling small and hunted despite the bare few inches he has on Patrick. He hadn't been expecting this, not at all. 

“Run that by me one more time,” Patrick says, and he’s too close for Pete to think. 

“Stop,” Pete says, feels broken, the word weak and untrue in his mouth. 

Patrick pulls back, even though he has to know Pete would do anything, _admit_ anything right now if he just pressed a little harder. 

Pete’s never been good at denying Patrick anything.

He doesn't press. He doesn't say anything, just stares at Pete for a few seconds, frustration and annoyance and still that fucking smugness all tangled up in his expression. Pete wants to say something but the words won't come. He doesn't even know what he _wants_ to say.

“Let me know when you feel like you want to tell me the truth,” Patrick says at last and walks away. He doesn’t look back. Pete doesn’t look away once, until he’s around a corner and out of sight. 

Pete slides down the wall and breathes into his knees. 

There's a garbage can nearby, leaking wilting, rancid trashbags. Pete can relate to an uncomfortable level.

-o-

They play their last show that night and for once Patrick is the one in motion. He stalks the stage after Pete and instead of standing and gritting his way through the performance like he was planning to he’s playing a game of keep-away that neither of them want him to win, really. Joe seems oblivious until Pete tries covertly to use him as distraction, when he dances out of the way and Pete has to keep moving.

The audience loves it at least, thank god.

Patrick traps him for the second to last song against the edge of the stage. It’s Mick, and that’s never been a particularly sexy song but Pete’s never been able to lie even to himself about how much he loves his words in Patrick mouth. It’s half the reason he fell in love. 

“I said I loved you but I lied!” Patrick sings and, wow, that sounds like an accusation if Pete’s ever heard one. It hurts more than he ever thought it would because it’s so untrue, he’s loved Patrick for about as long as he’s known him and he never lied about it. But he has his part, he sings in this one, so he leans forward and does it and if he does it with more vehemence than is warranted that’s no one’s business at all. 

They finish on Grand Theft Autumn and it feels like a really clear omen, honestly.

-o-

“What the fuck was with you tonight?” Pete demands when they get offstage, shoving Patrick a little. He’s still got his bass around his neck and Patrick is holding his guitar in one hand and Pete serious couldn’t care less. He’s going to start a fucking fight and destroy the instruments in the process, the ugly hurt and terror in his gut has gotten its shit together enough to bloom into blinding rage.

Andy snags Pete by the back of his shirt and plucks the bass off of him. Patrick hands off his guitar to a nearby tech without looking, keeping his eyes on Pete the whole time. His expression is half obstinate, half pissed-off. 

“Let me _go_ , motherfucker!” Pete hisses at Andy, trying to elbow him away. Andy doesn’t let go, turning him around to face him. 

“Get your shit together, Wentz.” he says, and he sounds pissed off himself. Joe is standing behind him, arms crossed, obviously ready to catch Pete if he manages to escape Andy’s hold. “You’re not doing this in public, whatever your issue is.” 

Pete tears himself out of Andy’s hold and stalks up to Patrick. 

He recognizes the stance Patrick falls into as he approaches, like he’s bracing to take a punch. It feels off, not right for Patrick to be expecting Pete to punch him, but Pete is pretty far past caring. 

“Come on,” he growls, and grabs the lapel of Patrick’s jacket to drag him away. Patrick goes easily. Andy and Joe follow them at a distance, quietly warning away techs and fans. 

Patrick jacket is drenched in stage sweat. Pete doesn’t know why he’s noticing. 

He finds their bus and yanks Patrick on board, slamming the door in Andy’s face. He doesn’t try to open it, which means he’s probably standing guard outside. Andy is a good friend, Pete should find him when all this shit is over and apologize. 

They stand in the middle of the floor, too much space between them, and Pete can’t think of what to say. He’s all sparks and static between his ears. 

It doesn’t help that his anger is spent and gone, leaving sick fear in its place. Now that he’s here he kind of wants to run, actually, but Andy will probably just throw him back on the bus until he deems their shit sufficiently sorted. Besides, running won’t do anything but postpone the whole thing. It’s inevitable now. 

“What’s going on?” he finally asks because Patrick has on his obstinate expression and apparently wants Pete to go first. 

It’s a nice question, he congratulates himself, gives nothing away. 

“You said my name,” Patrick says. He’s meeting Pete’s eyes like it’s hurting him to, a thought Pete doesn’t like at all. “In your sleep. Moaned it, actually. So I started thinking.” 

“Oh,” Pete says, kicked out of him, because _obviously_. Obviously it was the dreams that gave him away. The one thing he could never get control of. 

“And I came to the conclusion you want me. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m right,” Patrick says when Pete can’t continue. “If I’m wrong you have to tell me. But you weren’t exactly convincing before.” 

“You want to know, what, if I want to bone you?” Pete asks faintly. The words are a joke but they come out a little cracked and not even Pete can pretend they’re funny. 

Patrick nods, and his eyes are fucking huge. Pete can’t meet them. He’s tired of keeping secrets, and apparently he wasn’t even any good at it in the first place. 

“So maybe I do,” Pete admits, staring determinedly at the ground. He hastens to continue because never let it be said Pete doesn't put the band first. “It’s not a big deal, I can keep it out of the band. You don’t need to worry about it.” 

There’s a beat of silence and Pete memorizes the pattern of the carpet. His heart is trying to crawl out of his chest and it’s taking all of his focus to keep himself still. 

“You have to be kidding,” Patrick says, sounding so incredulous Pete flinches.

“Yeah, I guess, stupid idea,” he babbles out when he gets his breath back, backing away towards the door. If he goes through it fast enough Andy probably won’t catch him and he can hide out on someone else’s bus until he stops wanting to throw himself off a building. He can come back later and try to convince Patrick to let him keep the band. 

Patrick hand latches around his wrist, halting him. 

“Not like that, fuck’s sake Pete. And you say I have self-esteem issues,” he gripes, tugging Pete gently back from the door. Pete follows without fighting, helpless to stop himself. 

“Like what, then?” he asks, trying to snap and ending up just sounding exhausted. “What do you mean?” 

Pete just doesn’t understand. He’s past the point of being able to work this shit out for himself; he’s tired and a little broken and he’s let go of a secret he’s been keeping for so long it’s ridiculous. He’s allowed to be a little slow. 

“I’ve had a crush on you since I _met_ you, Pete,” Patrick says gently. 

Pete’s whole world shifts. A swaying, vertigo-inducing feeling that washes through his chest and heats up his face. He’s pretty sure he’s blinking stupidly. Patrick is staring at him so hopefully and Pete wants to touch so badly. 

So he does. He doesn’t have anything to lose anymore, and Patrick had said he had a _crush_. 

Patrick huffs out a breath when Pete’s hand lands on his cheek. 

“This better not be fucking around,” he says, and Patrick shakes his head. Pete’s breath hitches. 

“I wouldn’t,” Patrick says softly. 

Pete watches him for a moment, searching of his face for serious intent. He finds it, and obstinacy, familiar as the sound of Patrick’s voice. 

At last Patrick drags him in with the hand still around his wrist and wraps his arms around Pete. Pete _melts_ into it. Patrick’s soft and warm and the cuddliest person Pete knows, and Patrick hugs are the best hugs. Pete tucks his face into Patrick’s damp, smelly shoulder and tries not to lose his shit like he kind of wants to. 

“So are we…?” he asks when Patrick finally lets him up. He’s not sure what he means. Are they together? Are they anything? 

“If you want?” Patrick asks hopefully. It’s the right answer. Something in Pete’s belly loosens that’s been tense for so long Pete had forgotten it was there. 

“I really, really do,” he says and grabs Patrick by the shoulders. 

Patrick makes a sharp noise when Pete presses his lips to Patrick’s. It’s not like he remembers, from way back when they go signed. It’s _better_ , because Patrick is pressing back, a hand splaying on Pete’s lower back and the other coming up to cup the back of his neck. 

Patrick kisses sloppy, wet, like he has something to prove, and Pete thinks wildly that he could do this forever. And then Patrick’s hand slips up under Pete’s shirt, brushing the skin of his lower back, and thought vanishes like a blown-out candle. He arches at the touch, into Patrick, and Patrick moans. He’s hard, Pete can kind of feel it, and Pete _wants_. 

Patrick shifts when Pete presses his teeth gently into his bottom lip, pushing him back until Pete feels the wall against his shoulder blades. He pulls back, looks at Pete, eyes dark and smiling. 

“You should come home with me, when we get back,” Pete says. His voice is cracking and too soft but Patrick nods and presses back in, biting down on Pete’s bottom lip, harder than Pete was expecting. It makes his hips buck once, the sting, and Patrick laughs into the kiss. 

“Knew you’d be into that, Jesus,” he mutters. 

Awareness slaps through Pete, hard and fast, and he jerks back. 

This isn’t one of his dreams, this is _actual Patrick_. Actual, real Patrick who is letting Pete kiss him, who is touching Pete like Pete’s aching for, who is _eighteen and also real, holy shit_. He’s gonna fuck this up, Pete knows he is. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. 

They stare at each other for a moment. Pete can feel the ground shifting under his feet, their relationship changing.

He should be talking about this, probably, and he seizes that thought. He’s never been good at talking about his feelings or relationships in general, not directly. He’s got a library of notebooks attesting to the fact that he needs a metaphor or two between him and his emotions. 

“You done this before?” he asks at last. That’s probably important, he thinks dizzily. He’s not thinking clearly, not even _close_ , he still wants to put his hands on Patrick so badly, but he should probably find out at least that much. 

“Yeah,” Patrick says, going red and avoiding Pete’s eyes. “Are we going to talk about this? Really, Pete?”

Pete swallows down a bite of irritation and leans back a little. Shit, he should be negotiating this. Find out what Patrick’s okay with. He’s jumping into this with no plan and fuck, the shit he wants to do should probably be eased into. Panic and confusion are washing away his arousal. 

“No, I mean,” he fumbles for the words, “We should, right? This is… it’s important. This is a big deal.” 

“Well then!” Patrick says, tone false and bright and bitingly sarcastic. His face is stormy, and a little humiliated. “If by ‘big deal’ you mean kinky sex then yes, Pete! I’ve had kinky sex before!” 

Pete flinches, jealousy and hurt combining into a spiky ache in his throat. He deserved that, he really did, but he doesn’t want to think about anyone putting their hands on Patrick before Pete did. It combines to flare up into anger, an echo of the anger from the stage. 

“Pardon the fuck out of me Patrick, if I want to make sure I’m not freaking you out,” he snaps back and yanks his wrist out of Patrick’s hold to fold his arms. Patrick’s backed off half a step, frowning. 

“What are you trying to do here, Pete?” he asks slowly and Pete scrubs his face with his hands. He doesn’t _know_ , is the problem. 

“I don’t know,” he admits finally, still trying and failing to keep the anger from his tone. “Talk about shit? Emotionally? That’s what I should be doing, right?”

Patrick starts laughing and Pete frowns, wounded. 

“We don’t exactly do that, you and I,” Patrick wheezes out finally, grinning. “You’re not going to freak me out. I know you’re into kinky shit, Pete, the whole fucking world knows that.” 

“There’s a vast fucking difference between knowing about it and having to deal with it directly,” Pete snaps back and then winces. He’s fucking things up, he knows he is, but he’s so used to stuffing these things down that talking about them doesn’t come easy. Apparently, it only comes out when he picks a fight over it. 

Patrick eyes him for a moment, gaze softening. He steps forward again, back into Pete’s space. Pete suddenly breathes so much easier. 

“Things get really twisted in that head, huh,” he says, nudging Pete’s cheek with a knuckle. “It’s really okay. I’m kind of into some kinky shit too.” 

He’s pretty red when he says it. Pete hates how endearing it is, and the way his anger has drained away like magic. 

“Are you?” he asks, can’t help a grin, and Patrick huffs. The ugly tension is gone now, and Pete leans his forehead against Patrick’s shoulder with a sigh. 

“I’m a fucking mess, ‘Trickster,” he sighs. Patrick’s hand cups the back of his head. “Get out while you still can.”

“I’ll pass,” Patrick says, laughing a little, and Pete feels his heart beating double-time.

-o-

They are forbidden to fuck on the bus.

Andy and Joe push onto the bus as soon as Pete cracks the door open and make sure they know this on no uncertain terms. Patrick punches them both separately for it, brilliantly crimson. Pete laughs so hard he snorts, he agrees anyway. He owes them both a lot. 

They only have a day anyway, until they get home. Pete spends the time glued to Patrick’s side, climbing him and dragging him around and generally making a nuisance of himself until Patrick throws him on the couch and sits on him. 

It’s nothing they haven’t done before, exactly, but there’s an edge to it. Pete’s dying of horniness, he swears, this is worse than high school.

-o-

Andy and Joe kick them off the bus in front of Pete’s house and Pete drags Patrick inside so fast Patrick nearly trips over the doorway.

Patrick’s kissing him the instant the door shuts behind him, pressing him against the door. They’re alone, Pete’s brother is at school or something and Pete’s mom is out… somewhere. Pete can’t care. 

It’s better than dreams, better than snatched kisses on the bus, better than anything. He's on fire with it, trying not to let on how desperate he feels. Patrick's hand on the side of his throat is enough to make his cock pulse in his jeans. He knows he's being too loud, knows it by the echo of his harsh panting in the quiet air, and can’t bring himself to care.

Patrick pulls back, his teeth catching on Pete's bottom lip for a moment and pressing gently. It's enough for a momentary sting and Pete can't hold back his broken noise.

“Shit, Pete,” Patrick pants. His mouth is red and a little swollen from how hard he'd kissed Pete. Pete touches a fingertip to Patrick's mouth and watches, fascinated, as Patrick's tongue runs across the pad in a slide almost too fast for him to catch.

“‘Trick,” he says. There's nothing else in his brain to say, he's broken for anything else. Instead of talking he grabs Patrick’s hand and pulls him down the hall. He wants Patrick, wants absolutely everything, but wants Patrick on a bed most of all. 

He makes it to the living room before he’s shoving Patrick onto the couch and settling into his lap. He pauses there, looking, because Patrick is flushed and hard and panting and Pete wants to engrave this into his memory. He wants to remember this forever. 

“Am I that hot?” Patrick jokes breathlessly under his scrutiny. 

I've been dreaming about it,” Pete says without thinking, more sincerity to it than he means to let through. He curses under his breath when Patrick draws away.

“Not like that, I'm _swear_ I’m not that creepy,” he tries when Patrick doesn't say anything.

He can feel the wariness in Patrick's gaze and it hurts a little because he'd thought Patrick of all people wouldn't _judge_ him for that. For his crazy. It aches in his ribcage and suddenly he’s not very interested in being touched right now.

“Sorry, fucking, I’m sorry,” he mutters and tries to climb off Patrick's lap. Humiliation is ugly and bitter in the back of his throat and he hates Patrick a little for making it happen. 

Patrick snags him by the wrist and pulls him back fiercely, forcing him back into Patrick’s lap. Defiantly Pete meets his eyes, refusing to let humiliation and regret stop him, and sucks in a breath at Patrick’s expression.

It’s dark, but not angry or judging or upset. The darkness is all arousal, hunger and possessive intent. It’s not a rejection at all. It’s not enough, though, there’s still panic and humiliation swirling around in his brain.

“Just let me-,” Pete tries to say but Patrick hooks an arm around his waist and presses the fingers of his free hand to Pete's lips. 

Thoughtlessly he opens his mouth and lets Patrick's fingers slide inside a little, running his tongue along the pads. It’s a little difficult to breathe around them and Pete's mind goes quiet in a rush of silent static. Patrick's fingertips taste salty with sweat, a metallic tang that Pete vaguely knows is probably guitar strings.

His dick twitches at the unrelenting pressure against his lips.

“Pete, _god_ ,” Patrick bites out, the words sounding punched out of him and involuntary. Pete moans against the fingers in his mouth.

Patrick pulls his hand back, resting wet fingertips against Pete's lips.

“Christ you're an idiot,” he says quietly. His voice is rough and deep and Pete grinds down involuntarily at the sound. “I've wanted you so long. The thought of you dreaming about me, _fuck_ ,” he continues, voice dropping into a hoarse whisper. “Let me do this, it could be so good. Fuck Pete, please just let me.”

Pete can barely remember why he said no, now, lost in the way Patrick's gaze is riveted to him, worshipping his face with his eyes, the kind of attention Pete's only seen Patrick give to guitars and music before. It's good, something not even Pete's dreams could get quite right in the gritty reality of that focus. He tries not come right there in his pants like a teenager.

He wants more.

“Please,” he gets out. His lips drag against Patrick's fingers and Patrick bucks a little under him, dick hard and straining against Pete's ass.

“You need to say it, Pete,” Patrick pants, as close to pleading as Pete's ever heard. “You need to ask me for it, please Pete, just tell me if you want it.”

“Please, Patrick,” Pete moans and licks Patrick's fingers. “I want you.”

Patrick's eyes darken, actually darken, pupils blowing wide and going predatory on Pete's skin. It slices into him, makes him feel the kind of naked and exposed that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the leisurely way Patrick's looking at him, like he's sizing Pete up to be eaten.

“You look so good, Pete,” he says, and presses his fingers against Pete's mouth again. He moans, opens his mouth, and they press in and in until Pete's mouthing their entire length. He sucks, thoughts nothing but static and how good it feels.

“You look good with my fingers in your mouth, Pete,” Patrick whispers, his voice thick and lilting. “You look like you belong like that, like you belong with something in your mouth. You like that? You like sucking on me?”

Pete can't form words with Patrick's fingers on his tongue but he moans and nods as much as he can. There's spit on his lips from how wet he's getting Patrick's fingers. He wants to suck Patrick's cock, wants it thick and hard and satin-smooth, rubbing his mouth raw and making his jaw sore. He wants Patrick's hand in his hair, pulling tight and just enough to sting, fucking his mouth but so gentle he doesn't hurt in the morning.

“You want to suck my cock?” Patrick asks, smiling dark and sexy. He starts to fuck his fingers into Pete's mouth a little, a slight rocking in and out. “You'd look so gorgeous like that, down on your knees for me. So gorgeous.”

Pete moans, sharp and harsh and kicked out of him. _Gorgeous_ , he thinks dizzily, and could almost maybe believe it.

Patrick pulls his fingers out and threads his dry hand through Pete’s hair, pulling on it. Not a hard yank, not intending to hurt, but impossible to resist. It pulls his head back, leaving his neck exposed and cold and Pete shivers. Patrick hisses at the motion.

“If I do something you don’t like you tell me, okay?” Patrick demands, voice serious. Pete whimpers but nods, too incoherent to form words. Patrick grins, sharp and hungry.

“You get to come once,” he says, dropping an octave, and Pete thinks hazily that he’s never heard a voice so much like sex. Then his words register and Pete’s hips jerk up sharply, desperate for friction. “And then not again until I say you can.”

“ _Yes,_ ” Pete gasps, and then muffles a cry by biting his lip as Patrick unbuttons and then unzips his jeans, shoving them down his thighs and relieving the pressure a little. It feels so fucking good, and Pete lets out a moan when Patrick's knuckles graze his cock. He doesn't have long, though, before Patrick's shoving his hand into Pete's face. His fingers are still damp. 

“Lick,” he says, and grins darkly. “Unless you want me doing this dry.” 

Pete licks, though his cock jumps at the thought of that much painful, dry friction. Patrick watches him with dark, nearly-angry eyes. 

Patrick’s dry hand pulls out his dick, careful with the cotton of his boxers. It _hurts_ when he wraps his slick hand around it, Patrick’s grip too tight and too much even with the slick of Pete's spit, and Pete wants to cry with it. It’s so good.

“God,” Patrick murmurs darkly and then he’s pulling Pete’s head back further, bowing his spine and shifting him forward enough to press Patrick’s mouth against the skin of Pete’s throat. Pete sucks in a breath and tries desperately not to scream at the sensation.

Patrick mouths at his neck, deliberate almost-bites that leave Pete winded like he’s run a mile, the scrape of Patrick’s teeth on his skin making him shake. It’s more than he can take, the slick slide of Patrick’s damp lips and barely-there sensation, and his cock is so hard it’s aching, precum leaking in sharp little shocks. He’s rutting against Patrick’s hand, desperate for the friction and trying not to let tears leak out because Patrick’s grip is _still_ too hard.

When Patrick bites down, finally, Pete cries out shrilly. The pain is perfect, blinding, white wordless flashes behind his eyes and he comes so hard his vision goes dark. His dick is still pulsing when it clears, over-sensitized and twitching with aftershocks.

Patrick licks the place he bit, gentle and sweet, and Pete relaxes into it with a happy murmur.

Patrick squeezes the hand still on Pete’s dick, once, and Pete _screams_. It's a shock, and too much sensation.

“C’mon, come on, get up,” Patrick says, laughing, urging Pete to his feet. 

Pete tries, stumbles and almost falls. He’s dizzy with how hard he came, loose-limbed and lazy. Patrick has to grip him by the hips, holding him up as he climbs to his own feet. Pete leans into him, arousal down to a low-simmer except for the knowledge that Patrick’s still hard in his pants. 

Pete feels Patrick’s gaze dragging over his body as he gets to his feet, taking in his ruffled clothing and flushed face, lingering on his raw lips. He doesn’t look upset, but Pete can’t help the flutter of panic in his chest because he should have reciprocated somehow, shouldn’t have been so greedy. Nobody likes a greedy partner. 

“You look so good, Pete,” Patrick whispers and pulls Pete into him by his loose belt loops. Pete ducks his head instinctively and sucks in a hard breath when Patrick tucks his fingers under Pete's chin and pulls his head up to meet Patrick's eyes.

Patrick is smiling, sweet and slow and perfect and Pete feels the knotted up guilt in his belly loosen a little.

“You're so good,” Patrick repeats and walks around behind Pete. Pete's skin flames and Patrick presses up behind him, solid bulk and the hard jut of his cock against Pete's ass through Patrick's jeans. “So good.”

Pete feels the words sink into him and he relaxes in a rush. The panic is gone, back down to an incomprehensible murmur that means nothing. All he can think about is Patrick, perfect Patrick.

“You like it when I call you good?” Patrick asks in his ear. “You wanna be good for me?”

Pete moans, softly, and feels his head roll back a little. He doesn't want anything more, wants to be so good for Patrick.

“You're good, Pete, you’re perfect,” Patrick whispers, just a breath against the shell of his ear, and kisses his shoulder. Pete shudders, feels it down into his bones.

“Patrick?” Pete asks shakily. His voice is cracking.

Pete feels Patrick's hand pressing against his stomach, fingers inches shy of his heavy, over-sensitive cock. He groans and shakes in Patrick's hold.

“Come on,” Patrick says and urges Pete gently forward. Pete shudders, involuntarily, at the brush of air against his cheek and ear, and stumbles forward.

Patrick takes him down the hallway, pressing him against the wall every few feet to kiss him. Pete’s a little taller but he’s weak-kneed and shaking and goes easily when Patrick pulls him down demandingly.

Patrick opens a door and pulls Pete inside and Pete wishes, abstractly, he had a moment to steady himself. He can make out the familiar band posters on the wall, the guitars on stands, the messy clothes on the floor, before Patrick’s pulling back and backing up a few steps. He’s staring and Pete can’t look away.

“I want you to strip for me,” Patrick says, and Pete’s got his shirt off in seconds. He slows down a little after that, taking his time unzipping his pants and working them off - they’re too tight, fuck - and then his messy, wet boxers.

He’s naked, suddenly feels exposed and vulnerable and it takes effort not to hunch over and try to hide. Patrick’s eyes on him feel like too much attention.

“You look good,” Patrick says, trailing a hand down Pete’s shoulder. It leaves goose bumps in its wake and Pete shivers. He can’t say anything, no words are coming, and he shakes his head. He’s not sure if it’s a denial or trying to clear his thoughts.

“You do,” Patrick says, tone brooking no argument, and backs up to sit on the bed. He gestures for Pete. “Come here.”

Pete steps closer and does his best not to look like he’s trying to hide. He’s not comfortable but hot arousal is still prickling down his spine and aching in his cock.

“Down,” Patrick commands and Pete's knees hit the floor before he's conscious of the decision to drop. It drives the self-conscious thoughts right out of his head and it feels good, and Patrick's smiling at him approvingly, and Pete's cock gives a lazy throb that makes him hiss. It's good, so good, on the edge of too much and painful, and Patrick hasn't even done anything yet.

“Do you want to suck me?” Patrick asks, leaning back lazily and palming his cock, hard and tenting the front of his jeans. Pete feels his mouth water at the thought of it. He wants it, wants it suddenly and blindingly.

“Please, yes,” he gasps. Patrick swears under his breath and presses the heel of his hand down suddenly. He's watching Pete's mouth with that predatory, hungry gaze and Pete ducks his head, licking his lips.

“Fuck, Pete, you're so fucking sexy,” he whispers harshly. “So good. C'mere.”

Pete shuffles forward on his knees, the way Patrick's eyes are on him making him flush and excited in a prickly, uncomfortable way.

Patrick's hand in his hair stops him when he's finally between Patrick's open legs. It tilts his head back until he meets Patrick's eyes and he sucks in a breath because-

Because Patrick is looking at him with blown, hungry pupils but his smile is still kind. He's looking at Pete like Pete's everything he ever wanted, like Pete's something precious and beautiful. It's too much, too real, and he wants to look away but Patrick's hands is still in his hair and he can't.

“Please, please let me,” he asks desperately, and Patrick grins. It's slow and sharp, a half-lidded gaze and Pete can handle that better.

“You want to? You want my cock in your mouth?” Patrick asks lazily. His hand tightens a little in Pete's hair, not enough to hurt but enough to remind Pete that he wants it to.

Pete nods as much as he can, licking his lips again compulsively. Patrick pupils dilate just a little bit.

“Can you ask nicely for me?” Patrick asks, and Pete makes a desperate noise. Patrick shakes his head, makes a reproving sound and pulls on Pete’s hair again. It hurts and Pete gasps.

“Please, please let me suck you,” he gets out, laying his hands on Patrick’s parted thighs and pulling forward against Patrick’s grip on his hair. Just a little, enough to make the sting worse and his cock thicken. He’s getting hard again, more, and it doesn’t feel good except in the way it’s _so_ good Pete can feel tears gather in the corners of his eyes.

“ _Pete,_ ” Patrick grits out. His thighs twitch under Pete’s hands and he wants to put his mouth on Patrick more than he’s ever wanted anything.

“Please,” Pete breathes, not really capable of anything more, everything gone from his head but aching want.

Patrick’s thighs flexing under his palms is the only warning Pete gets before he’s being pulled forward, face pressing against the bulge in Patrick’s jeans. It’s hot, burning against his lips and cheek, and Pete can smell the heavy musky smell of sex in the material.

He mouths at the denim desperately, wanting to taste, wanting to do more but not certain what he’s allowed to do. Patrick grits out a sharp noise and pulls Pete even harder against his cock for a moment before pulling back a little and letting go.

Pete stares up at him, uncomprehending, mouth open a little still from how he’d been mouthing at Patrick’s cock. His lips feel a little raw from the rough material and Patrick stares at him for a moment.

“Fuck, Pete, you look-,” Patrick says, but cuts himself off and Pete doesn’t notice if he says anything more because Patrick’s unzipping his pants and working them down his thighs. He’s wearing briefs and the jut of his cock against them is practically pornographic. There’s a wet patch of precum and Pete licks his lips without thinking when he sees it.

“-Pete, Pete, listen to me,” Pete realizes Patrick is talking to him when Patrick’s hand touches his cheek and he jerks, a little panicked flutter at not noticing Patrick had been speaking. It’s washed away as soon as he looks up at Patrick, at the way Patrick’s _still_ smiling so perfectly to him.

“I need you to tell me if you want to suck me like this, or if you want me to fuck your mouth,” Patrick says, the words coming out easy and obscene and making Pete pant for breath.

Pete doesn’t know if he can make his mouth work, form the words to say _don’t give me choices_ and _I want you_ and _any way you want me_ all at once, so he just shakes his head once and stares at Patrick. Patrick nods slowly, still meeting his eyes.

“This, then,” he says and pulls Pete’s head forward.

He works his cock free with his other hand. Patrick’s cock is thicker than Pete expected, and he spends a few seconds just looking before Patrick makes an impatient noise and pulls on his hair again.

Patrick’s hand in his hair goes lax when he finally leans forward, only to tighten when he flicks his tongue against the underside of the head. He can feel the way it makes Patrick’s thighs jump, and does it again a few times before sucking it into his mouth and resting for a moment with the tip of Patrick’s cock between his lips.

Patrick’s staring down at him, eyes as close to all-pupil as Pete’s ever seen, the iris a thin ring of color. They flutter shut when Pete begins to suck in earnest and Patrick groans, low and long. It’s lyrical, reminds Pete vaguely of his singing and Pete moans, tonguing Patrick’s cock so the vibrations travel.

Patrick’s hand in his hair pulls, a sudden sharp yank that drags Pete further onto his cock, until he’s close to gagging from it. He pulls a hand off Patrick thigh and wraps it around the base of Patrick’s cock, trying to brace himself a little. Saliva is slicking his lips already and it feels filthy and sexy in the best possible way.

He can’t take all of Patrick cock - _not yet_ \- but he can take enough. He bobs his head and strokes the underside with his tongue the best he can.

Patrick starts to rock a little bit, not fucking Pete’s mouth exactly but still motion. Pete does his best to keep up, sucking messily. He can feel the muscles of Patrick’s thighs flexing under the hand he’s still bracing with. It feels powerful and he gets the flicker of a thought, part Patrick up on stage playing his guitar like he's making love to it and part the thought of Patrick _actually_ letting go and fucking his mouth, bruising his lips and using him and making him feel so good.

The only warning Pete gets that Patrick is about to come is Patrick suddenly pulling urgently on Pete’s hair, trying to pull him back. Pete refuses, dives down until he’s taken all he possible can and sucks as hard as he’s capable.

Patrick grunts when he comes. His taste is bitter and a little salty and objectively disgusting. Pete is far past caring, swallows, and then swallows again, licks Patrick’s cock until all he tastes is his own saliva and Patrick’s skin and all he can hear is Patrick panting out curses above his head.

Patrick reaches down and pulls him up, pulls on him until he stumbles to his feet and lands on the bed next to him. His knees hurt and he’s shaking with how hard he is again but it feels so good he never wants it to stop.

Patrick kisses him with the taste of his cum still on Pete’s lips, hard and biting and perfect and Pete’s lips are bruised from Patrick’s cock and he’s pretty sure he could come from this, the blanket barely friction on his cock and the perfect pain but he _can’t_ , Patrick said he couldn’t and Pete is good. Pete can wait. 

Patrick pulls back a little, watches him, his scrutiny making Pete feel hot and flushed and buzzing under his skin.

“I don’t think I can fuck you,” Patrick says, hesitant for the first time, “but I have lube and stuff, I can finger you, if you want.”

That choice, that one is easy. Pete wants it with absolute, breathless surety.

“Yes,” he says, voice wrecked from need and Patrick’s cock, “ _Please_.”

Patrick swears, looking at him with wide, hot eyes, still for just a moment. Then he’s in motion, rearing up and reaching across Pete into the bedside drawer and rummaging around, coming up with a little tube of lube. It looks well used, about half empty, and Pete’s overwhelmed for a moment with wondering what Patrick uses it for, a spare jealous thought for _on who_ , before Patrick’s getting up on his knees and urging Pete up.

He settles Pete down, lying across the bed on his stomach, and brushes a gentle hand across Pete’s ass. He jumps a little with it and Patrick makes a soothing noise.

Pete hears the cap of the tube of lube pop and then some vaguely obscene, wet noises that he thinks must be Patrick slicking up his fingers.

“Ready?” Patrick asks, but doesn’t wait for Pete to say anything before he’s dragging a wet finger across Pete’s hole. It’s a good thing probably, Pete’s incapable of words now, just a hard, sharp noise when Patrick presses slowly in.

Patrick’s finger is slick and a little chilled and Pete cries out, feeling every centimeter in one long slide that doesn’t hurt but feels… intrusive, and so hot at the same time. It presses in and out a few times before Patrick pulls out entirely and presses back in in a moment, two fingers this time.

Pete’s suddenly hit with the realization that these are Patrick’s _fingers_ in his _ass_ , his calluses dragging on his rim. Pete screams with it, at the too much and the clever press of Patrick’s fingertips inside him, how much it is. It’s so good he can’t even think, he kind of wants Patrick to stop but at the same time wants Patrick to fuck him with sudden, desperate fire.

Patrick’s fingers press against his prostate at last, press and twist and he’s crying, he can feel the tears leaking out, but he couldn’t ask Patrick to stop even if he could form the words.

Then Patrick’s mouth is against his ear, murmuring “You’re being so good for me, just a little more,” and Pete just. Sinks.

He’s under, a hiss of static in his head and nothing else, just Patrick. Patrick everywhere inside and out of him, his smell in Pete’s nose and his taste in his mouth. Patrick’s fingers are still moving, feeling terrifyingly, painfully good in some distant way, but the need to come isn’t as desperate and he feels himself loosen.

“God, Pete, yes, that’s good,” he hears Patrick say and he makes a low, pleased noise, rocking back against Patrick’s fingers a little. It feels good in little shocks of sensation, his cock rubbing against the blanket and Patrick skimming his prostate almost-but-not-quite every time.

Patrick pushes a third finger inside him and he feels _so full_ , full down to his bones and sated with it. He hears himself making little hitching cries at every movement.

“You can come now, Pete,” Patrick murmurs in his ear and he’s coming one thrust against the blanket later, sobbing with it because it’s so good and so much that he nearly blacks out.

Patrick pulls his fingers free and Pete makes a desolate little noise. He wants Patrick’s hands on him, just the touch and warmth a reassurance. 

Patrick rubs his shoulder with his dry hand and urges him up, sitting against the pillows. He keeps his hands on Pete the whole time and Pete drifts in it. 

“I’m gonna go get some stuff to clean us up, okay?” Patrick asks quietly. “You did really good, Pete.” 

“Okay,” Pete says, feeling his eyelids dropping. He’s so tired, suddenly. Aching, and so thoroughly used up that Patrick must see it as well, because he feels Patrick kiss him once before pulling away. 

He comes back, a few minutes later, and Pete registers it only because he’s suddenly being touched, and Patrick’s there, and he hums happily as Pete cleans him up and tucks him under the covers. Patrick climbs in after him and Pete burrows into his side, pressing close. 

Patrick tucks an arm around him and Pete’s asleep before Patrick settles all the way down.

-o-

He wakes up after Patrick for once this time.

Waking is lazy and easy, and he’s rolling over to press his face into Patrick’s side like it’s something he does all the time. It’s kind of true, anyway, this is hardly the first time he’s woken up in bed with Patrick. 

Pete’s not usually totally naked though. 

“Good morning,” Patrick says when Pete sits up. He’s got his glasses on, frowning down at a pile of documents Pete vaguely recognizes as tour schedules. 

Pete feels a vague moment of déjà vu, like nothing’s changed and Patrick is going to bitch at Pete for being naked in his presence and everything will have been a dream. Pete’s pretty sure he’d throw himself off a building. 

Then Patrick’s glancing over, smiling softly, and hey, wow. Pete hadn’t really registered, but. Naked Patrick. Patrick is not wearing any clothes. Pete is a big fan of this. Pete is all for the institution of nudity rules in this relationship. 

“You should never wear clothes again,” he blurts, because apparently boning his lead singer makes him a _fucking idiot_. 

Patrick goes brilliantly red and pushes Pete’s face away, grumbling under his breath. He shifts around a little uncomfortably too, but he doesn’t start pulling a hoodie on or anything. Pete grins in triumph and wiggles closer to cuddle up. Also possibly to cop a feel. There’s a _naked Patrick_ , that’ll never not be fucking amazing. 

“We’re back on the road again soon,” Patrick tells him absently, going back to looking over tour schedules. Pete shrugs and sits up to look. 

Patrick presses an absent kiss to the top of his head, not paying attention, and Pete feels his heart turn over so hard he has to swallow to get his breathing right. He loves Patrick so much. 

“I love you,” Pete says, and holds his breath. 

“Uh huh,” Patrick says, not paying an _ounce_ of attention to Pete’s heartfelt confession, the _fucker_. Pete exhales explosively and glares so hard Patrick apparently feels it because he blinks and looks up. His expression is classic confused Patrick. 

“What?” he asks, sounding wounded. Pete yells wordlessly, because _are you fucking serious?_

“I confess my love to you and all you have to say is _uh huh?_ ” he demands when his voice comes back. It's doing something jumping between registers he’d call a squawk on anyone else but he ignores that, throws his arms out wildly, tries to find the words to illustrate exactly how pissed off he is. Maybe a little hurt, even. 

“I already knew,” Patrick says, and now he’s eyeing Pete like Pete’s being particularly dim, fond and exasperated and Pete would like his stupid heart to stop fluttering now, please. It’s not dignified and he’s trying to have a fight. “You tell everyone literally all the time.” 

Pete has to stop for a minute, blinking. 

“You believed me?” Pete asks at last. Patrick grins, honest and open and Pete has to reach out and knuckle at his cheeks a little, smushing the smile around to make sure it’s really real. 

“I always believed you,” Patrick says after batting Pete's hands away and shrugs. “I just thought you meant platonically.” 

“You're my soulmate,” Pete says and tackles Patrick off his bed. 

Patrick punches him a few seconds later. It might color their relationship just a little.


End file.
